> I'm dismayed that the very environment we all share somehow got politicized to death.

Largely in the US; the very existence of anthropogenic global warming is not a partisan issue in most of the world.

> I wonder what would have happened to the Ozone Hole if it too got politicized at the time

It did; there are people who deny it _to this day_, amazingly.

> or the link between smoking and cancer

It did; tobacco companies lobbied and continue to lobby mightily, and politicians were arguing that tobacco wasn't unsafe for a long time.