(just remember you can't get any new tools, new materials or any applicabilities unless the stuff to make 'em with didn't first be extracted from the earth's minerals/soils/hydrocarbons, etc. Right?)
The extractors of raw material like making that argument, but it is no more legitimate than the enviros claiming that "everything is connected." You can connect anything you want to mineral extraction, but you won't live long enough to make anything without topsoil and rain, and you won't get those without management of the life systems on the land. The point is, one can connect anything one wants to something else, but that doesn't make said connection legitimate to the contention at issue. No one element of the production loop is any less critical, particularly information management.
A math model is a tool. A software program is a tool. Both can preclude use of vast amounts of wasted physical raw material and are therefore equivalent in value to production thereof, yet require virtually no raw material at all. Human intelligence is as important to a productive planet as are its raw materials, both gifts of G_d with which to fulfill the glory of His creation.
It doesn't ALL start with rocks.