For the rest of the natural world, human population is an absolute disaster. The Anthropocene is a direct result of the pressure human population places on all other species on this planet.
99% of all the species that ever existed on earth are now extinct. The vast majority of these extinctions occurred before humans were a significant presence in the ecosystem. Maybe the more accurate statement is that the natural world is an absolute disaster for all living populations.
That isn't particularly fair though, since most biologists would have roared from the rooftops top stop other extinction events if they could avoid them.
And we are the cause of the current mass extinction. Through the innovation of society we have conquered the planet in a way few other multicellular organisms have managed to in the past, where they gain some evolutionary advantage that enables them to in short order effectively conquer all of their habitable zone.
It isn't unique though, the only difference is we can look at it happening and have this spark of wit in the back of our heads that tells us while we individually contribute little to the event we collectively are destroying biodiversity.
That isn't to say biodiversity is particularly saintly. Its gone away before, will go away again, and all we are really doing is eliminating anything that is not beneficial to us and that cannot coexist with us, not even through attack, but just by claiming our habitat as our own. Yes, our ignorance in how we allow it to happen might be our downfall if we kill off essential species in food chains that cripple ourselves as a result, but thats the risk you take dominating an environment the way we consistently do.
Its the same way any evolving mammal 60 million years ago would have been stomped out by dinosaurs that dominated their habitat, preventing the evolution of most mammalian life we know today back then.
That's not completely true. There are some species that have adapted well to human domination. To give a trivial example: there are bacteria that only live in human bodies. They wouldn't do well if there weren't so many humans. :)
Pet species like dogs and cats are other trivial examples.
But there are larger non-pet species that have adapted
to live in an environment dominated by humans. Rats are one such example.
I think a lot of it comes down to focus. You have tons of code to work on, maybe family and/or a full time job, etc... It's easy to forget that customer email represents a real person at the other end.
