Over the last 300 years we saw that we could manipulate nature through the emergence of science. Humankind started to believe that it had dominion over the Earth; and that the Earth and nature have to serve us in our own evolution.
Just think of the discoveries of philosophers and scientists like Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Newton. Their understanding was that nature was meaningless and purposeless, and its only function was to ‘serve humans in their evolution’.
Descartes for instance believed that animals had no feelings. His belief was: ‘Man is at the top and Earth is here for us to use, to exploit’