Low hanging fruit is easier to pluck. It might be that we cannot progress much further without consuming so many resources that Earth is left an uninhabitable husk.
That is precisely why we must transition to space based resource extraction and manufacturing.
There are practically infinite resources at our fingertips on the moon, the asteroid belts and eventually the gas giants.
What we need to unlock this are the means to economically launch a minimum viable self replicating infrastructure into space to take advantage of this.
The feedback loops that will ensue should we succeed will allow us to save Earth ecology, radically transform the human condition, and unlock the ability to explore the universe in ways that we can only imagine.