You might have breathed too many of those car exhaust fumes if you thought that car fumes were through to freeze anyone, even in the 70s.

CO2 has been known to be a greenhouse gas for a lot longer than that.

I'm just repeating what all The Experts (tm) told us what was going to happen to the planet back then. Don't shoot the messenger. Back in the days before you were alive particulate matter from pollution was going to cause so much of sunlight the Earth receives to be deflected back in to space that were were all going to freeze to death by now.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/225798861/Newsweek-s-Global-Cooling-Article-From-April-28-1975

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/50-years-ago-scientists-puzzled-over-slight-global-cooling

It even goes back as far as the 50s. https://harpers.org/archive/1958/09/the-coming-ice-age/

Let's not forget that global warming can cause global cooling: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/01/the-great-climate-flip-flop/308313/

Let's not forget "The Coming Ice Age" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tAYXQPWdC0

That might be damage from the leaded exhaust fumes rather than a memory of genuine argument that paper bags would "cause all the trees to be gone".

Once again: I'm just repeating what all The Experts (tm) told us what was going to happen to the planet back then.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/plastic-bags-pollution-paper-cotton-tote-bags-environment-a9159731.html

"Plastic bags were invented to save the planet, according to the son of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin who created them in 1959. .... The bags were developed as an alternative to paper bags, which were considered bad for the environment because they resulted in forests being chopped down."

https://www.quora.com/In-the-90s-we-were-taught-to-use-plastic-instead-of-paper-to-save-the-rainforest-from-deforestation-Now-were-taught-to-use-paper-instead-of-plastic-to-save-the-ocean-from-pollution-Why