Are We Better at Assessing What's Going on Now Than 20 Years Ago?

We are better at assessing what's going on now than 20 years ahead. There may be changes in technology and science that lead to things we don't know about. We should try to stay up to date with the latest knowledge so that we can best predict the consequences of our action. Otherwise we're just paralyzing ourselves. And there's no reason to think that inaction is going to be better than action.