Those civilizations thought that it was the wrath of a god or two, or some war would consume everything. We have actual scientific evidence that our completely unhinged and largely unregulated use of resources that natural creatures have no access to is destroying our planet.
If the difference is hard to grasp then I’m starting to understand why the U.S. has undecided voters right now.
Of course, when you change into "the world as we know it", it was already "destroyed" several times in recent history by things like cars and the internet...