You think consuming less would stop the economy dead in it’s tracks. And … Is that a bad thing? As we know, “economy” means “rich people’s yachts”.

And just as obviously, reducing consumption is not binary. There’s no way to go to zero, nor would anyone seriously propose it. But anyway, with an increasing population and limited global resources, it’s inevitable that people will have to reduce at some point, so the disaster you hypothesize would strike us anyway. And in that case, gradual change now is better than catastrophic change later.