To be fair, the Soviet Union did all those things long before the climate was a concern.
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Climate concerns have been around in academia since at least the turn of the century, but have been in the public consciousness in the West since the 60s.
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“Oops I drained an entire sea to grow cotton” probably has a common sense component to it that would suggest “Maybe this is a bad thing to do in the long term for the people living here”