Well I understand your point, and sort of share it, but I sort of don't. The government sometimes has to step in and force people to do what is best or we would see more rivers combusting, and salmon on the west coast would be completely depleted. We wouldn't have national forests, select cutting would just be snickered at still, we'd have segregation and discrimination in the work place, because let's face it, if you are paying someone less than their due, someone else is getting more. The government has a role in guiding society to the best course of action. It doesn't have to be heavy handed in all cases, but in some cases, it needs to be firmer.
Sorry, horse shit, the lot of it.
Rivers combusting is bullshit first of all, it's an exceedingly rare capability and unrelated to industrialization entirely. The Cuyahoga catching fire was first recorded by white man in 1868. Yes, that's before the industrial revolution. Moral of the story? Don't dump shit in slow moving water. It took Uncle fucking Sam over a century to actually do something about it. If enough animals lived there, the same problem would exist. Swamp fires are, after all, a natural event.
The Salmon on the west coast is being endangered by federal regulations that make it impossible for Alaska to stop people in other states from running Atlantic salmon farms in the bleeding ocean, where the tasteless and more agressive fish escape and compete for food. Eventually, they'll probably end up wiping them out as more and more escape, no more good salmon despite the efforts of the local government in Alaska. If you've noticed, the rest of the areas already have a distinct lack of Salmon despite government rescuing them. The reason being Uncle hasn't actually done anything at all to protect the salmon from fishermen.
The national forests die from bug infestations and burn down instead of being cut down. If the Tongas ever goes up during a drought, it will be the largest fire in recorded history, and probably sterlize the top soil. Vastly more damage the economical logging could manage. Most wood products are also produced on tree farms, it's more economical. By controlled planting you can create straighter, more consistent timber of higher value in specific varieties. Logging a forest results in mostly substandard wood.
Segregation and discrimination in the work place were already solved in the north before Uncle stepped on the south over it. What is the current state of things? Black people axe you questions and can't get hired because they can't speak english... They really did a world of good with affirmative action, didn't they? It's every KKK members dream, have them be ignorant, ill equiped, culturally bankrupt, second class citizens all because it's wrong to teach diction and rob them of their culture. Meanwhile, you can't get shit done in government agencies because race and gender norming leads to idiots being hired more often than in the private sector.
I live in a valley where the air quality is crap and occasionally dangerous. We can't have industries in this valley that over pollute, guess who makes sure they don't locate here, our local government. Yes, it sucks because jobs are hard to come by, especially right now, I am sure people would love vote to bring them in and then a handful of decades later, get amnesia and forget it was our fault and not the government's that our lungs are in peril and we're dying and our kids all have asthma.
Now this is sensible, every conservatives dream. For those of you that think the Republicans in congress are conservatives and have no idea what I'm talking about, just keep reading and be quiet. Local government handling a local issue. You live in a valley with less than adequate air flow, if you build a bunch of power plants, you'll kill yourselves. The EPA on the other hand forces Anchorage to add pollutants to the water just so they can take them out, because there aren't enough pollutants to meet the requirements. The water is clean enough to be consumed straight from the source. Local control is a wonderful thing. You can fuck up your own city and it's all your fault. If someone else fucks up your own city, you can't do anything about it. It's the entire purpose of a limited federal government in the United States, that thing we used to have.
Having a world organization telling people what they can and cannot do, which is the obvious goal of the current nonsense, is the exact opposite of your local issue that was solved locally. Even if the disaster scenario happens, it will be worse with the "help" than it would without it, just as the EPA and other national regulatory bodies have caused far more harm than good here in the US.