> even consumption typically does not destroy any matter nor loses any to the void of space.
Yeah if you scale back to the universe nothing ever changes and nothing matters at all.
If you start looking at air/soil/water pollution (which is only a fraction of our problems) it's clear that our ways of life are far from ideal. But sure, the atoms are still all there, I don't think that's the part that matters tho
We are sitting on a huge ball of matter, and even consumption typically does not destroy any matter nor loses any to the void of space.
(The sun is a great source of energy. We also have nuclear fission and fusion, otherwise.)