Who would have thought that sand, so ordinary and plain, could be so pivotal? By far the largest mining endeavor globally is digging up sand, mainly for mixing into concrete to construct buildings. An estimated 40 billion tons of sand is excavated each year. There are no free lunches in our exploiting any natural resource—even something as lowly as sand. Globally, sand mining is exacting a serious environmental toll. Is there any ecological exploitation that we can get away with scot-free? Devamrita Swami