To be fair, we deluded ourselves into thinking we were the special ones that all this was created for, and deities wouldn't let it be ruined unless we displeased them. There's still a lot of people who believe that. And as late as the 1990s it was easy for a normal person to think the scientists were just being dramatic.

Of course now with a top ten heat year, every year, for the last several years, and breaking the record for half of them, it's easy to look back and be harsh.

Leadership should have been more responsible. But they're just normal people too. The decision was truly made by the oil corporations whose own studies told them this was happening. And they spent billions over the decades to fund denialism.