I believe the concept of nature is weird for some people and also not very informative. For uninterested people nature is everything that is green or outside of cities. I’ve actually have become progressively disappointed by the number of people I directly know, that are actively afraid, grossed out or bothered by the idea of just hiking very normal and marked trails very close to cities in places without any dangerous animals. For them nature is something to fear. So even if I think the nature is a alive angle may appeal to some people I’m not sure it fixes that fear.

I’d say it’s been around for millenia… probably as long as language at least. Not a fresh idea globally, just for those of us who grew up in a dominionist-type world view.

I don’t really understand your link to the IPCC figure…

FWIW, I think “water is alive” is only a concept that makes sense in a context where the water is interacting with other things (e.g. the hydrocycle, winds, tides, ecology). Water in the purified and stored sense isn’t really… Unless it can rust it’s container, I suppose. But yeah, rivers being alive makes lots of sense.