This is beautiful, Bowie Yin. "earth would be better without us" is wrong on several levels. For one, there's no way humans are bowing out without taking everyone else with us. For another, we have the ability to undo the damage we have done. For another, we can do so much good, as you highlight. Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about that a lot in Braiding Sweetgrass. It's the systems that need to go.