This article on Salon.com presents the opinion of a physician that human civilisation is carcinogenic to our environment.

I have no argument with that opinion; to me it seems unarguably true.

There is, however, an entirely possible consequence of this opinion. If it is a fair characterisation, and we think of the natural environment as an organism, there is a non-zero risk that the planet may mount an immune response to humanity, treating us as an infection and attempting to rid itself of the plague of humans. This immune response could be of several forms:

• New diseases affecting humans; this is already happening (e.g. Covid-19);
• Existing diseases becoming more dangerous (more infectious and/or drug resistant); this is is already happening (e.g. bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics, diseases increasing their geographical range);
• Increased geographical range of dangerous species; this is already happening (e.g. so-called murder hornets, poisonous snakes and spiders);
• Increased frequency and severity of natural disasters (weather and earthquakes); this is already happening;
• Wild species learning behaviour that is harmful to humans; this is already happening (e.g. Orca teaching other Orca how to overturn and sink small to medium sized boats, large predators such as tigers becoming man-eaters, more attacks by rogue elephants, bison, bears, etc.);
• Growing problems with agricutural pests; this is already happening.

I am sure that this list can easily be expanded.

All this does not imply that there is any consciousness behind the changes, but statistically it looks as if something could be going on.

The answer is not to to wage war with the natural world (I am not sure how we could wage war on natural disasters anyway); the answer is to learn to be better house guests on the planet that we share.