We can't go back, unless we are willing to kill off most of the population. If we give up just one hundred years of technology we have to destroy every forest in an attempt to grow enough food. All seven billion humans giving up on society and going back to a hunter/gathered society would lead to an immediate collapse of most ecosystems.
We are certainly consuming too much to be substainable right now, but at the same time the amazing efficiency improvements that civilization has brought us are the only thing that make it even possible to live on this planet with seven billion other humans.
Shouldn't we also consider comfort in the future?
For that, we must manage resources to avoid exhausting them or destroying ecosystems, because that would create a very uncomfortable future.
what an incredible argument to make.
essentially you're peddling the argument of "god put oil on earth for us to burn, if we dont burn it, its a waste!"
I probably didn't make it clear enough, but what I'm suggesting is to use available resources to create better world for us and every future generation. The argument is more like "god put oil on earth for us to bootstrap a sustainable technological civilization with it".
That, and also resources are here to be burned for our comfort. We should, by all means, burn the minimum amount of resources required for said comfort. But still, there are here to be burned. Otherwise, to minimize resource usage, let's all give up on civilization and go back to caves.