We have been on the planet for about two minutes in the grand scheme of things, actually 200,000 years (the Dinosaurs were here for 165 million years) and science has been practised for about two ticks, but our arrogance is such that when we scratch about with our gadgets and inventions anything that is indicated which appears negative always brings the reaction "we did that". The "we" is not new and goes way back - the cleverest people on Earth, who invented mathematics, logarithms, geometry, algebra, astronomy and much else, could calculate the weight of the Earth, the distance to the Moon and other bodies with remarkable accuracy, all agreed on one thing, that we were at the centre of the Universe - and they were wrong.
One of our near neighbours is a giant nuclear furnace of unimaginable temperatures which keeps us at just the right heat, but it's constantly spewing out massive explosions - solar flares up to 350,000 miles high, which some think may affect our weather.
Since the 1950's the UK has done a remarkable job in cleaning up the environment, particularly the rivers and estuaries, to the extent that many places would be unrecognizable to folks from that era. The countryside is probably more beautiful than it's ever been thanks to farmers and Government initiatives, but you won't hear about this or the Solar flare stuff because there's no money in it for the plethora of Quangos and Universities now wading about in our taxes care of Global Warming thank you. They should forget it and apply themselves to cleaning up the plastic from the Oceans.