Not all of environmentalism is pseudo-science. I recall the brown skies, filthy rivers of the late 60s. IMO the problem comes when the initial problems have been (or are on their way to being) solved, for example getting rid of leaded gasoline, using catalytic converters. The bureaucracy casts about for a new reason to continue and we end up with an EPA that defines waterways as areas that get wet when it rains.

The other thing I thought of is the underground influence of post modern thoughtlessness but I "don't remember thinking during that time": What the Hell...I'm gona be what ever I will...there ain't no consequences.

As I read, I thought of the abandonment of the Gold back dollar...so our venture into fiat money didn't start out so good and has been downhill from there.
Interesting the changes in the culture at the same time, as if God said: Ok boys, you're on your own now.

The WTF guys are bullish on bitcoin and yes it would help to create sound money but my feeling is that "money" should remain physical.
digital...scares the hell out of me...the block chain goes down, the servers blow up...it's all lost in smoke just as surely if you put fire to the $$'s in your wallet.

The rise of women and the fall of scientific method.
Hard to tell what is cause and what is effect though. That is lacking in the article. It's just observation.

I place the philosophical change at Earth Day, April 22, 1970 -- wherein we turned away from the Moon, Nuclear Power, technology and growth in favor of the pseudo-science of environmentalism.

Lots of things happened around then, Johnson's great society, the Vietnam war, etc., But the the big change in thinking that I remember was the shift to environmentalism and the anti-population thinking of ZPG.