"That's OK for everything else in the universe, but dammit, we're special!" I'm glad you can acknowledge the disconnect inherent in that view.
I see "free choice" and intelligence simply as an emergent means to let us look for and use more energy more effectively. It has given us a much wider choice of energy sources than any other animal, and that's the whole ballgame. My view is that the universe doesn't give a damn whether our species dies out, and as products of the universe, on some level neither do we. As a species we care most about sticking with the program, and if it means we have to put up with inconveniences like global warming - oh well, that's the price we have to pay.
The reason we can't get a handle on all our growth-related issues like climate change, population growth, consumption growth, urbanization, resource depletion and the increasing disparity between rich and poor is that those are all part of the thermodynamic process we're fulfilling.
The core message is, "You can't fight Mother nature." And Mother Nature IS the laws of thermodynamics. The horrifying dilemma is that we may be able to figure out what's going on, but we can't stop it.
The idea of "motivation for our actions" is an interesting one in this context. There's a general distaste in science for teleological explanations: "Nature wants us to do thus and so," or "Evolution has this goal." But we're all quite content to use those formulations for choices that come from our own minds. My take on it is that our actions are shaped by these underlying universal laws, but we rationalize our choices in order to make them personally and culturally acceptable. Our cultural superstructure (values, beliefs etc.) is much more of an explanatory device than a directive mechanism - especially where matters of energy and entropy are concerned.
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