This is actually the biggest problem with your arguement. The germans has dozens of other losses before that. Those set backs were overcome and tye empire expanded each time. It is only long after the peak can you say “THIS is when it was over, they just have given up there to save resources/people/whatever” same for the fall of rome for which there is no one event, no set back that could have possibly have been recognized at the time, and if they did 500 years of wealth, growth, and good living for many would not have happened.

You are doing the same disservice. Worse, you are pointing the finger at the wrong thing. You have almost this knee jerk response to say “capitalism!” Or “corporations!” When the correct cause is “government!” And “democracy!” (Side node: democracy, particularly a constitutional democratic republic is probably the best a government can be for millions of people, so i am certainly not promoting any sort of authoritarian or communist alternative, those would be worse)

How does a corporation even exist? Its a construction of limited liability granted by government. Why is gas cheap, because government lowers barriers for corporstions by fighting wars for them, by building roads for their prodicts, by allowing their pipelines to be straight otherwise they would have to twist and turn and as go through people’s property who agreed. How is gas even made? Through subsidized exploration and subsidized refinement.

But i am quite sure that you would never in a million year have agreed to the real solution to avoiding climate change: the destruction of the idea of a nation state or any state larger than a city, or perhaps a town.

Yeah, technology would progress slower, yeah, the rich would have things first and for longer before access is granted to the poor. There is no utopia. If you want this thing dealt with, you should start with the actual problem, and recognize that actual free markets would provide price signals to individuals so they can make rational choices, including those about their energy usage.