Best possbile environment

No idea about specifics, but if the Industrial Revolution stays really localized for awhile, and there are some horrific early accidents with spilling toxins into populated areas. Then when it spreads out to other localities people might be a bit more careful. Or the industrialists might just cover things up and bribe the authorities.
 
Perhaps is more industrialists and their families or politicians got sick from the pollution the IR caused. Or Queen Victoria took a set against the pollution of a favoured river or some other spot and demanded that the pollution be stopped.
 
Guys, this is the post-1900 forum.

The main cause of environmental degradation is over population and access to cheap oil. Is there a way to put some brakes on 20th century population growth?
 
Leave everything as is? Really conditions could be a lot worse than they are. All industrailized nations could have the environmental record of the former USSR or of present day China. To make things better, one has to get the communist bloc to adopt and enforce standards similar to those of the West at about the same as the West adopted theirs.
 
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