GOP Rep Delivers a House Floor Speech Straight Out of 'The Handmaid's Tale'

[Progressive dog]

19. There was nothing great to go back to

Only an idiot would think things were better then. Rivers were burning, smog was killing people in many cities. Syracuse, NY had a river that was so acidic you touching it would burn your skin. Onondaga Lake was a septic tank.
https://www.npr.org/2012/07/31/157413747/americas-most-polluted-lake-finally-comes-clean
"The lake [smelled] so bad [from the pollution] that you had to roll the windows up," he recalls.

By then, swimming had already been banned for more than a decade. Because of mercury contamination, fishing was banned in 1972, although there were not many fish in the lake. Effler says there was so little oxygen that fish often swam right out of the lake.
In many countries there were regular famines where many people starved.
Great Chinese Famine 1959–61[16] Half of the country, in particular Anhui (18% died), Chongqing (15% died), Sichuan (13% died), Guizhou (11% died), Hunan (8% died)[17] Great Leap Forward, Floods, Droughts, Typhoons, Insect Invasion[18] 2.6 million to 55 million died.[19][17][20][

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China