As technology improves, our use of the resources that we have available becomes more precise and more empirical. The utility of Nature is defined by the state of technology of the time. How much (and scale) that we can extract from Earth, the useful materials we can obtain from minerals for instance, defines their value. Nature no longer has intrinsic value in the Anthropocene, natural entities are worth as much as can be made from them or their existence has some greater benefit in existing. Trees for example are worth their weight in paper, wood chips and toothpicks to the industrialist man of the Anthropocene. Where the Anthropocene takes its next victim is ecological movements that try to portray to the larger masses that the removal of trees has a negative utility because of the removal of their abilities to lock in carbon.
So regardless of whether we are leaving the trees or cutting them, the identity of the tree has morphed and determined purely by its function, not its intrinsic value. This is down to our anthropocentrism, the centering of needs around ourselves. In a lecture from Professor Keith Peterson, he discussed the creation of the human world, one in that we separate ourselves from Nature. As discussed by J.P. Sartre “There is no other universe except the human universe, the universe of human subjectivity”. It is important that during this period of enlightenment to the Anthropocene that we learn to come to terms with our anthropocentrism, and make adaptations that help slow down the negative effects of our nature