Because of Chernobyl. And they did not fail at everything else. They succeeded in a lot of cases. For a rather large win, as I mentioned, the Ozone layer was

Because of Chernobyl. And they did not fail at everything else. They succeeded in a lot of cases. For a rather large win, as I mentioned, the Ozone layer was saved. Another big one was banning of DDT and introduction of regulations on everything from new pesticides / herbicides to emissions (or fuel saving as we used to refer to it until recently).