I think this issue of control is the basis for our differentiation between man and our romanticized vision of Nature. To add my 2 to this discussion, I think that nature is a much smaller subset of environment. The environment is everything around us and all that we interact with. By all means the environment is more than just matter. I equate the environment to what the common man would consider reality.
Nature however is a totally different being.
I am not an evolutionist by any stretch of the imagination. The argument I am made of matter and dioxin is made of matter thus we are the same I find a little shortsighted. To continue the discussion from class, plastics did not just randomly appear, man designed them. Man put some logic and thought into the chemical makeup of plastic. Because of this design, the plastic has some significance.