I made the assumption based on the idea that industrialization has historically provided better living standards than an agricultural way of life. If that is no

I made the assumption based on the idea that industrialization has historically provided better living standards than an agricultural way of life. If that is not actually happening, please forgive me for my ignorance of the situation. Maybe "out of poverty" is the wrong wording and it should be stated as "making life a little less difficult". I at least would like to hope that the current conditions are a temporary, intermediate step in bigger improvements. You might be aware that there was a time when the US had pretty bad environmental conditions in many places. In 1969, the Cuyahoga river was so polluted that it caught on fire (http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2009/06/cuyahoga_river_fire_40_years_a.html http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2009/06/cuyahoga_...). In general, pollution had been bad for a long time, but it seems like a "tipping point" had to be reached where the problem was obvious to everyone. Reforms eventually came and succeeded in cleaning things up. So hopefully, given enough time, the kinds of issues you've described can be solved.