Monkey or no monkey

What drives the vast majority of people to devote themselves to the maximum satisfaction of elementary basic needs and to do so with great zeal? By this I mean eating, drinking, sleeping and reproducing of their own kind. And that with an almost limitless extensive effort. Even knowing that their livelihood is based on planet earth, and that this, as a closed system, cannot physically adapt to the increasing consumption of resources, such behavior is more than just strange. From this observation alone, they would have to come to the conclusion that a person has nothing in common with a monkey and nothing in common either. If humans behaved like monkeys, one would not have to worry about the planet earth in its physical and biological wholeness, or about its living beings of the most diverse kinds. In any case, they don't behave like monkeys. That cannot be overlooked. So what drives many people, besides the greed for power and money, to such reprehensible behavior?