So said the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, 2,500 years ago.

I find the current outspoken efforts by so-called ‘environmentalists’ to resist change a bit misplaced. I consider myself environmentally aware. I try to keep my environmental footprint as small as possible by reusing and recycling, as well as by being energy efficient in every way I can.

I don’t, however, adhere to the popular set of opinions that say in order to be environmental, we have to stop using oil, stop quarrying the land, stop using water, etc.

The planet has always changed and adapted as time goes on, and it will continue to do so. We are not the only animal on the planet that has overused natural resources. We are often led to believe that oil and coal are finite resources and that we’re using them all up. The reality is that they are produced at a certain rate, and we are consuming them faster than they are being recreated. This is a common stage of many ecosystems, and a typical result is that usage drops to a rate similar to production. This will happen, and we don’t need to worry about it too much. It will happen naturally, as the scarcity of the resource drives up its cost—making other options (solar power, ground-source heat pumps, wind power, etc.) more viable.

Neither is quarrying really the devil it’s made out to be. I live in the French Alps, and in our valley there are a couple of quarries. They are eyesores—granted. But their output is needed to build houses for people to live in. On a smaller scale, ants and marmots do the same sort of thing—digging holes in the earth to build their homes. We don’t see many environmental groups hanging around marmot sanctuaries with placards, though.

We have quite a few big glaciers here. The damage they are doing to the mountains in this area is phenomenal. They are ripping great gashes down them, dragging rocks along, and dumping piles of debris (moraine) as they go. This is far more disfiguring and destructive than the two small quarries—but I don’t see anyone suggesting we try to melt the glaciers to stop them. Far from it. In fact, people are up in arms because the glaciers are melting.

And what is wrong with using water? We can’t use it up, can we? If we flush more water down the toilet, what happens to it? Is it really ‘wasted’? Does it somehow disappear, never to be used again? No—it just heads back down to the sea or ocean, like all water, to be evaporated once again and repeat the cycle. Does using less water in France mean that those without water in Africa will get more? No, it doesn’t. We should be encouraging people to help support the building of wells and water treatment facilities in places with water shortages, not making them think that flushing the toilet less often will somehow help people without water halfway around the world.