> and presumably created infrastructure jobs

Yeah. Sounds a lot like the dig-up-all-the-carbon-burn-then-bury-it-again civilizational project going on the past 100, and next 100 years.

What exactly was the purpose to "re-arranging small bits of matter near the surface of the earth" again? [1]

Basically I wanted to make a comment about greedy exploitation-exploration trade-off strategies here but will stop short at this kind of eliptical passing remark.

[1] paraphrasing Russell in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Idleness_and_Othe... it is appropriate given current moment