I just hope the future finds a way to undo so much of the damage.
Cocaine didn't result in large scale environmental damage, to this day it's still in widespread medical use as a local anesthetic.
Imho a much more apt example would be something like "plutonium toothpaste" and the fact how humanity has irreversibly changed Earths biosphere by introducing large quantities of atmospheric plutonium 239 during the countless nuclear weapon tests [0].
Any acknowledgement of potential deadly consequences out of that mostly exist in some fringe awareness [1], and pretty much never comes up in any debates around the risks and dangers of nuclear as a source of energy generation.
[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0096340215581357
[1] https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civi...
Future? We can undo it now -- just with life improvements and simplifications, I've dropped my emissions 90%, according to online calculators. I take two years to fill a load of trash at home, which used to be weekly. Many other changes. And one person changing is exactly what causes more people to change.
As a result, Mayors, Congressmembers, and other politicians, CEOs, champion athletes, and more have come on my podcast, helping lead large communities. The Hacker News community is particularly recalcitrant, believing that Mars and fusion are simple and will solve everything while flying less or having fewer children is against human nature and solve nothing, but there's variation.
Systemic change begins with personal transformation.
Thankfully we don’t judge we don’t judge people who made errors in the past out of ignorance. ;)