> The only thing that will matter is if we advance our technology
This is your objective to meet your end which is survival. I don't agree with it, but I'll respond as if I took it for a given.
> As far as I know, the best way for humanity to advance technology is with growth.
What you mean by growth here matters. More people with a higher standard of living is two types of growth. One is economic the other is population. But there are other dimensions to grow across.
For example, peacefulness has produced just outstanding yields in many valuable areas such as productivity, research, and ecological protection. But peacefulness did not arise out of nothing. It took lives to create our world which is peaceful for most people. Real people working on arms control agreements and diplomacy.
Improving education is similar. You could argue that education requires resources, and that is true to a point, but we are well, well past that point. North Korea is capable of nuclear weapons and rocketry. Most elementary school programs can get by on $100 worth of reusable books a year and some paper and pens.
Now the green model has some fatal flaws, and there is a reason I'm a Canadian Liberal not a Green, but the core thrust of Green thinking is a good thing in my opinion because I've found that, in general, prevention is more efficient than cure because it's easier to align incentives with prevention.
One of the problems with incentive alignment is that the international system is anarchistic and individual choices are unpredictable and given over to passions that are often unethical. This leads to unavoidable arms races (literal and figurative) across multiple aspects of society and politics.
So, for example, China builds new coal power plants because they're in a power competition with the West and to build wind turbines instead would cost a non-trivial portion of their GDP and institutional focus.
Anyway, in summary, yes with what you outlined as your objective economic growth matters, but so do other forms of growth. I would even include spiritual growth (or decline) matter too. People are acting incredibly sanctimonious and paranoid right now and it isn't helping their more charitable instincts.