That is a very reductionist view. You can ignore lots of factors and make up a simple equation with the only ones that help your case. Europe has better quality of life now. Europe has fewer endangered species and didn't care about the environment back then but progressed. Hence, if we don't care about endangered species, life everywhere in the world will be better. Well, among lot of other things Europe didn't care about things like human rights either back then, should we stop caring about that too?
This is the equivalent of picking and choosing words in an article and making up your own sentences.
Surely there are things like latitudinal gradients of biodiversity, historical context of the same European countries colonizing and stealing wealth from all these other countries not too long ago. And, of course there's also the fact that European quality of life is perhaps better now, in 2018, move the needle back or forth by like few hundred years (that's a microsecond in scale of ecology) and see how things change.
Surely there are things like latitudinal gradients of biodiversity, historical context of the same European countries colonizing and stealing wealth from all these other countries not too long ago. And, of course there's also the fact that European quality of life is perhaps better now, in 2018, move the needle back or forth by like few hundred years (that's a microsecond in scale of ecology) and see how things change.