It's been pretty much essential. Earth's entire land area used to be wilderness. Now a substantial proportion of it is farmland, without which we wouldn't eat.

It's been pretty much essential. Earth's entire land area used to be wilderness. Now a substantial proportion of it is farmland, without which we wouldn't eat. It's a tool for enabling civilization. It hasn't really started killing us yet -- the population is expanding. This civilization may and probably will collapse, like the Romans, but I'm not sure exactly how a civilization could grow exponentially forever, so it's kind of inevitable.