[gxon]

Exactly this. Before the oil age, we were already rapidly decimating forests for fuel. In a way, the discover of fossil fuels averted that ecological disaster and there are more trees now (in America at least) than 100 years ago [1].

Solar and wind energy generation are great, but don't have a high ERoEI in early development. Oil that's gushing out of the ground has an insanely high ERoEI and we used that to advance our technology very quickly.

Also remember that we probably have only a few hundred million years left before the sun expands and heats the planet to the point were complex life can't exist. There will be no liquid water in 1 billion years.

This is all conjecture. It certainly could be possible that future civilizations can become space faring by a different path than we took, but that's a terrible gamble to make if you think intelligence in the universe is worth preserving and expanding.

1. https://www.treehugger.com/more-trees-than-there-were-years-...