The second law of thermodynamics essentially says that any system will tend towards thermodynamic equilibrium, i.e. the universal tendency is for energy to be evenly distributed. This applies to the whole universe as much as a heater in your house and this gives rise to the idea of the heat death of the universe which is a state where ultimately the universe will end up at a evenly distributed temperature and at that point there is no energy gradient to drive any physical processes, such as life.

Somewhere in the universe is a fairly average star, the Sun, dutifully spewing its energy into the void, cooling itself down and generally following the second law when up pops a blue green planet in orbit around the sun. The green is trees and plants and they have a knack of storing energy in the form of oil, coal and other hydrocarbons. This will never do, it is cheating the universe from getting to its natural, evenly temperate state as quickly as it might. So on Earth there is a pressure to do something about those hydrocarbons and after a lot failed attempts humans evolved and uniquely we could control fire. Not just control it we had a thirst for it, almost as if we evolved specifically to exploit that small energy gradient created by the trees.

So is our control of the energy gradient, which allows us to live anywhere on the planet because we can heat ourselves and cook otherwise inedible foods, a natural selection pressure that has lead ultimately to humanity being stuck on a path to burning hydrocarbons and in a tiny way speeding up the process of the universe reaching its natural end point?