Firstly, I think this distinction is pedantic and unhelpful. It's like saying your car wasn't destroyed in a high speed collision, it just got mashed into a for

Firstly, I think this distinction is pedantic and unhelpful. It's like saying your car wasn't destroyed in a high speed collision, it just got mashed into a form that is no longer useful for human transportation. Yes, the giant mass of mostly rock called Earth is not going to literally be destroyed and cease to exist due to human activity. That's not what people are claiming, and I think that is clear. Secondly, we're making the planet a lot worse for more organisms than humans.