I've heard the idea expressed by many people in many different ways. Most versions compare our civilizations progress to a cancer or virus instead of just any old bacteria, because of the way we treat our environment. My favorite example is this[1] post about Factorio, which is a game in which you constantly add to a factory and expand to use more resources.

[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/b6gsxp/spreading_...