[...] We have to recognize that we are, and have been for a long time, the manipulators and managers of nature. Even those who acknowledge this in one breath will still fall back on metaphors like reduced “carbon footprint” — as if we could just step more lightly and allow nature to repair itself. This is, paradoxically, one of the most anthropocentric positions imaginable, since it presumes that it is the eternal and natural state of the world to be habitable for humans. But God didn’t create the world specifically for us. Natural history is indifferent to humans and every other living being, and is characterized by chaotic change and mass extinctions, not homeostatic balance.