Why is space weather a bigger concern now than it was in the past?

1) The more we understand it, the better we grasp its secondary and tertiary effects.

2) We have a lot more (and more important) stuff floating around in space. Telecom, navigation, surveillance and intelligence, weather tracking/forecasting, and scientific research satellites all float around up there doing various things that are so deeply integrated into our way of life that a significant disruption could cause enough trouble to destabilize governments or accidentally start wars.