Original post by fallen_acornsyour point about indigenous people is an interesting one. As far as I see, there are two ways to live sustainably on this planet:
1 - we regress to a sustainable point, based on our current knowledge and understanding
2 - we keep progressing, hoping to innovate/progress past/through the problem
Your position is a variant of number 1. It slows progress, and mandates (through your new non-capitalist system) that we live within our environmental means. We would have a more basic life then we have now, have to accept that the current way we are living is not sustainable, and cut back significantly until we can slowly move towards more advanced options. E.g. we have to only use renewable energy, use less plastic products, support less industry, less travel, less importing, less wealth etc. until we are all living at a level that doesn't harm the plannet. Then from there within our means we push forward slowly, never exceeding the planets tolerance.
My problem with this position, is that it slows progress down to a crawl. First it requires regression, and then progress afterwards by being restricted to the environmental limits of the planet/sustainability, is much slower.
The reason why that's a problem for me is that we know two things about our environment.. both of which are very well established and indisputable:
1, Climate changes have occurred for all of the planets history, mostly gradual, but occasionally rapid
2, Currently humans are causing climate change to vastly accelerate, and are exaggerating its effects
The problem with position 1, the regression-within-our-means option, is that it perfectly solves the second fact about climate change. It completely eliminates the human factors.
But it completely ignores the first fact. The climate will change, even if we stop all of our negative actions. We will go through warming phases, and cooling phases.. ice ages, sunamis etc. all will still happen. External events such as meteor strikes will still happen. For example, at the end of the last ice-age, 11000 years ago, the sea level rose by something crazy like 200 meters in less then a hundred years. It Changed the face of the earth in a century, and nearly wiped out all human life. That wasn't caused by humans. Equally the little ice-ages that partially led to the plauges that killed most of europe in the middle ages, were not caused by humans.
The point is, even if we stop making the problem worse, the problem is still there.. the climate will change, and it will happen in ways that will be awful for us.
That for me is why I edge towards the more risky option. The idea that the best way of solving climate change is to innovate more, grow more, push more, populate more.. keep pushing further, and eventually a solution will be found. Capitalism is key in this due to its promotion of competition and how it rewards innovation. In a capitalist system there is a delay.. sure now there is a motivation for energy companies to keep the status-quo, but as reserves run dry.. the motivation exerted by capitalism changes, and there becomes a huge motivation to innovate. Eventually who ever can solve the energy crisis will be the richest and most powerful man on earth. The idea behind the second way is that as the situation worsens the motivations change, and as the motivations change people will respond by sovling the problem. New sources of energy will be found, the market will respond etc.
For me this solves the situation better because - if it works - it keeps progress pushing ahead, and hopefully puts us in an advanced enough position to be able to mitigate against future climate events that we don't cause. Meaning it has the potential to solve both of the 2 facts about climate change.
Obviously the risk though is that, either a solution will never be found, or that it will be found to late. Both of which are genuine risks to the second approach. The risks to the first aproach are that you stiffle progression so much that when the next ice-age comes around (which we are over-due) we are not advanced enough to cope with it.