[chongli]

Read about some microbiology. Bacteria and fungi are all about drastically changing their environments to suit themselves while at the same time making the area toxic to their competitors.

Penicillium is a famous example of a fungus that makes toxins to destroy bacteria. On the other hand, the bacterial cultures in sourdough produce lactic acids which make the environment hostile to other, slower-growing things.

Then on a macro scale, look at beavers. They undertake massive ecological engineering for their own sake. They can wipe out countless other small animals and ground-nesting birds with the floods they cause.

It’s another kind of human exceptionalism to think we’re unique in altering the environment to suit ourselves at the expense of other species. We’re not. Perhaps the more distinguishing feature is that some of us actually care about it.

[lioeters]

I think that makes the difference, the fact that we are (becoming) aware of the consequences of our actions. It gives it the ethical/moral responsibility that we don't expect from fungi, trees, or beavers.

On the other hand, I like your comparison to other species. At an essential level, human culture has lot in common with ancestral life forms, like a culture of slime mould. There's collective behavior over generations, of which individuals are largely unaware.

"Exceptionalism" is an apt word, because not only do we treat other species as our resources, we do it to our own. Humanity eats its children. The fact that we're doing this knowingly, is why we carry shame, a guilty conscience in our collective psyche. We expect better of ourselves, because we should know better.