Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus

The images of the Earth at night show us how great our reach is. They also show us how overextended we are, and how vulnerable we are to the collapse which inevitably follows upon the overextension of any species beyond the carrying capacity of its environment.
The abundance of resource wealth - particularly energy wealth, which the technological revolution of the last two centuries brought into our grasp, has been largely squandered.
Our population has climbed exponentially following the curve of energy production. But the subspecies which has evolved over the last couple centuries, Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus, could quite possibly be the most short-lived lifeform on the planet.

The world we face will not be able to support Homo sapiens hydrocarbonus for much longer. And we have all but forgotten how to exist without hydrocarbons. It is time for Homo sapiens to
evolve a new subspecies, and hopefully this subspecies will be wiser than hydrocarbonus. We must make it our hope and our goal that the next subspecies will be more egalitarian in nature, possessing a better understanding of her place in the scheme of things and born of a vision of sustainability and harmony.