At odds with the earth

In class some time last week, someone brought up the idea of humans being at odds with the earth. We talked about how there's a hierarchy of beings, and how everywhere we go and everything we do is enabled by "the fruits of exploitation", as someone put it. It seems to me that thinking of this fact as a bad thing is a relatively recent change. For the first long while of human's existence, we had to be at odds with the earth to survive. The earth was a hell of a lot bigger and stronger and scarier than we were. Harsh weather, savage animals, natural disasters, poisonous plants, diseases, etc were obstacles we had to get over just in order to survive. So being at odds with the earth, and climbing our way up the ladder by domesticating animals and creating new tools wasn't a bad thing, it was completely necessary for survival and a natural instinct. Only now, we've climbed all they way to the top of the ladder and are still climbing higher and higher and higher, far beyond necessity. We have not only survived the earth, but have conquered it. Further, we have not only conquered it, but have enslaved, corrupted and polluted it. Only now are we realizing that now that we're at the top of the hierarchy of beings (and far in the lead), we have a responsibility to preserve and protect the things that are under us, the things that we have stepped on to get here. It's not just a moral responsibility though, it's actually now necessary that we preserve these things. We can't currently survive without oxygen, fossil fuels, trees, animals, etc. The elements of the earth that we used to be at the mercy of, then conquered, once again have us at their mercy because we are dependent on them in order to sustain our style of living. Now that we've set in motion all these negative side effects of clamoring to the top of the hierarchy of beings, we have to go back and repair as much of the damage we caused as possible. It's a strange circle we're traveling in... And we can't seem to have the foresight to see the next curve coming up, even though if we look back we'll see that same curve happening over and over in our past.