Unfortunately progress can only happen using the resources we have at our disposal. Currently we have an economy heavily based on hydrocarbons. There is a wide consensus (unfortunately, not wide enough) that this is neither sustainable not desirable, so we are trying to come up with alternatives. Those alternatives are not going to appear from thin air: we need to transition, as fast as we can can, to the next paradigm.
I think you underestimate how difficult is to change a country-wide economy. The huge challenges involved is what underpins the whole peak-oil movement [1] - irrespective of whether the theory is correct or not, the challenges posed by a big scale energy source transition are very well described.