We were given the planet. Then we squandered it.
Humanity was given dominion over the planet. Top of the food chain. Free will. Artistic license over the Earth.
From the time we first crafted a wooden spear or etched drawings in a cave, we never stopped building and creating. We built an entire layer of "stuff" that today circles the globe.
Mankind is responsible for creating every refined object on Earth. From the simple nail or ball bearing, to the massively complex airplane, rocket or ship. Look around you. Every unnatural object is man-made, and there's a lot of it! We didn't stop there either. We invented the technology to bring the man-made into the virtual space.
Many who live in cities are 90% or more immersed in man-made.
We became Gods.
But we Gods have used our power irresponsibly. We've known this for a while and chose to ignore or even intentionally deny it. Our call to action "let's build something!" became exclusionary. We stopped caring about keeping a balance. Using resources now excludes any concern about what resources remain.
We became parasitic. Parasites will suck their host dry until it dies, then they will die with it. This is where we are now. We created a man-made world without consideration of balance. A planet is a finite thing. It has only so much that it can offer without falling into suffering. Our godliness became greedliness. Our creative license turned into a broken mental construct that forever demands more.
When all the wood is cut, all the ore is mined, all the food and water are consumed we don't get a rehabilitation period. That's it for us. The Earth itself can and will recover, but we won't. The rich and powerful... those most likely to last the longest will rule over the ashes, until they too will succumb.
Humans were never meant to be Gods. We shouldn't have been given the chance. Thinking back on the Bible passage about Noah's Ark, that is a good analogy for what we are going through now. Back then it was the flood. Now it will be uninhabitable regions, rapidly changing severe weather, the dying off of resources in millions of hectares across the world due to a sudden incompatibility with the crops natively grown there.
We have taken our Godliness and squandered the privilege. And Mother Nature does not offer a confession booth to forgive us of our sins.