I mostly agree in the long term, but in some ways analogously to the pandemic strategy of short term mitigation whilst long term solutions are put in place, I see few downsides to trying to stem the flow now by altering behaviour, in order to give us more time to fix the issue properly.
There's also a sliding scale - not all things people can do to reduce their footprint are really "austerity" but rather alternatives with a different set of tradeoffs. A sideways move that requires a culture shift.
I don't mean this to come across as an attack - I don't know your motivations and I'm guilty of this personally - but IMO most people I talk to who argue your position tend to be doing it as much as a rationalisation of their own behaviour than as a position they've come to from first principles.