Reading your article, just now it occurs to me that we could ask an underlying question: Does it matter what we want nature to be, and do we have to know exactly what (if anything) our goals are for it? Perhaps not, and thus surfaces another option: We could discuss our treatment of Earth a bit more as we discuss human relations, such that we could discuss the Planet Earth as a network of beings rather than a collection of resources. To elaborate: When I think about how I'll relate to other humans, I do have to consider the possible consequences of my behavior on their lives, and in a general sense I should worry about my intentions toward them, but in another sense I shouldn't set goals for them, decide what they ought to be, and try to make them that thing. They are their own people. If they want to spend their time explaining themselves to me, they can show and tell me what they want to be; otherwise, they can simply live their best lives and be as they are (and I might observe and understand them from a distance). I can support their individual paths but shouldn't try to control them. So, if I've been dumping plastic in my neighbor's yard, my first step is to stop dumping the plastic and not worry about deciding which vegetables my neighbor ought to grow in their newly plastic-free yard, since my neighbor can define their life for themselves and enjoy their plastic-free life however they want (once I give them the opportunity to do so by ceasing to trash their yard). If I have a vague idea of what a plastic-free neighborhood would look like and why it's generally good to have less plastic, that vision and value might encourage me to stop littering. But I may not need a really detailed preconception of what everyone else is going to do in that future world — and it may just be presumptuous of me to try to guess it for others, as well as a distraction for me to spend my day outlining my planet-sized ideals and expectations, when what I really need to do is just focus on a more pragmatic goal of how I and others can use less plastic, and then we'll all have an opportunity to see what that world looks like.
