These examples do nothing to establish that "what man has broken, man can fix". I'm honestly appalled by the lack of scientific thinking in this thread.

I think you're downplaying how destructive heavy metals and xenoestrogens are on the population.

Widespead use of lead had horrific affects on child development - and it's even credited for being one of the factors that lead to the downfall of the Roman empire.

And if we hadn't stopped using pfas as quickly as we did we would have had an even bigger fertility crisis on our hands than we currently do. We would have strode right into a Children of Men scenario.

I don't understand how you can blow these examples off as a "lack of scientific thinking". The irresponsible use of chemicals (or, more charitably, unintended side effects) seriously damaged society, and collective action was taken to mitigate further damage. How is that not an example of what you were asking for?

I'm not blowing off any examples, I'm disregarding attempts to use these few data points as the basis for proving some asinine hypothesis such as "What man has broken, man can fix".

> How is that not an example of what you were asking for?

I didn't ask for examples. I asked for proof to back up the above claim. A few random examples aren't proof, I don't care how heavy and toxic lead is. It has nothing to do with our current environmental issues, it's completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.