If you think that Fayetteville residents weren't trying to protect the environment 30 or more years ago, please see

parts of the sample of old outdoor columns in several posts at
Aubrey Shepherd Outdoors
and then go to
Northwest Arkansas Arkansas Environment Central
to check a few old Eco-Logue columns from the Northwest Arkansas Times of the mid-1970s.
If you think the world's problems were less serious or unlike today's problems, check out the news pages from the paper from those same years.