Species Survival

I have heard it said that it is a natural desire for a species to survive.  Oh?  I think that addiction trumps natural instinct.  Ecology tells me so.  Our species know what it needs to do in order to stop destroying the planet.  But we don't do it.  In medieval times, when people discovered what they were doing wrong, such as sewerage, they began to correct it.  They responded to new knowledge.  We do not.  We are addicted to something else that we seek though it destroys the planet.  I am sure that it was a pain in the neck for medieval people to change for survival, but they did it.  And we say that the the modern world is more advanced?