In this alternate reality, why didn't the entrenched fossil fuel interests delay it as they delayed, in this reality, any attempt to introduce pollution controls, banish lead from gas, efficiency mandates, recycling, renewables, trains, sensible city design and belief in science generally (all widely accepted to have happened) and also nuclear (the world seems split on whether to blame the same fossil fuel groups for this, or, and I feel this is where you were heading, those damn hippies and environmentalists who, coincidentally I'm sure, have been under attack for decades from the very same groups).