I feel like we should do our best to not destroy the environment, for altruistic reasons but also for the very selfish reason that I have children and relatives with children so I want to leave them with a place they can live in and enjoy not a mess they have to deal with.

I think we have made great strides at saving some near extinct species, the kakapo for example, but we can do better.

Reading the title, I was ready to come in with arguments about the Cambrian explosion and different timescales, the article it's self however is not really talking about things along those lines, it is talking about the short(or very short) term where we assume that once species will easily take up a niche that was occupied by another if one goes extinct. Which I believe is looking at things on the wrong timescale, even if we assume punctuated equilibrium rather than gradual evolution.

Nature itself ain't in no long term stasis, its just us humans projecting our wishful thinking on our environment. Planet is warming since last ice age (ie all glaciers in the Alps are provably receding since 1850 when measurements started, and ie vineyard region where I live was provably under huge glacier some 25k years ago).

Often cited mosquito eradication (at least those transmitting malaria, dengue, yellow fever, zika and so on) would change few things even though most folks would not even notice... and I couldn't welcome it more intensively. These academic discussions in the west would quickly die off when people around you start dying frequently from these (especially small children, but also grandparents or just weaker / more unlucky folks).

Massive droughts this summer still continuing here where I live wreaked way more havoc not only in insect world than any such engineering would do, yet I see no violent mass protests all around the world about banning cars, huge transport ships or commercial & private jet flying for example, or some other big pollutants. Literal frog in boiling water situation.