As I have said elsewhere in this thread, I do believe there is a technological path requiring less fossil fuels and less easily accessible surface metals that would allow humans to achieve high technology and do the whole space colonization thing without an industrial revolution. It would take an order of magnitude or two longer and would be iterative and generational as opposed to explosive and revolutionary and might be more sustainable for it. Obviously I have no data to support this but its my intuition that its possible and perhaps even common for other life in the galaxy
