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The litany of things Level Two centered people think about in relation to the environment sometimes includes a superficial reference to life forms. Sometimes the term biodiversity surfaces briefly. But everyone knows that biodiversity is a lost cause. Level One biodiversity concerns are perfunctory necessities. A genuflection de rigueur. It is an act of victis honor, period. Not more, not less. There is no expectation that destruction of life forms can be halted. There is no desire to acknowledge the cause. It is a matter of duty. Level Three and the concept of limits is nasty and distasteful. Acknowledgement of where blame lies is distasteful as well. Noam Chomsky's brain functions properly but in general, Level Four can't be imagined by virtualy lobotomized automatons. A master plan? A master plan for all this apparent chaos and nonsense? That does not compute. So where does that leave you? There's only one place to go....

Home, sweet home. The safe place. The warm and fuzzy place where every BoBo can feel comfortable because everything is as superficial as can be. Home sweet home for the would be secular moralist, Level Two of ecological understanding. There's no need to visit the other three levels. All psychological reinforcements are available in abundance right here. Everything a BoBo nitpicker could ever dream up about which to gripe and bemoan. Pollution? Yep. That's here. What's your flavor? Plutonium? Pesticides, halides, oxides, herbicides, DDT, PCBs, POPs, dioxins, pick one and gripe til you're blue in the face. Then there's whales, seals, turtles, dolphins and indigenous humans when you run out of pollutants to gripe about. Go ahead. Scream your lungs out. It's healthy. It's cathartic. It's rejuvenating. There's nothing to worry about. Nobody takes it seriously. Everybody does it. It doesn't mean you're crazy or anything bad. In fact it doesn't mean a thing. Don't wear fur or eat your meat. It's the dernier cri.

Why do people like Level Two so much? It's not about reason. It's all about values. It's a comforting consensus gentium.

Ecology. Not everyone is really interested in ecology, so if you're uninterested, hey, just ignore it, everybody else does. As the goal posts get moved further and further towards anthropocentrism, individual inclinations to consider biodiversity, having been laudable once upon a time, have become moot at best. Having analyzed the situation from a balanced perspective using reason instead of values, we describe the big picture about ecology which will please neither the right or the left for different reasons. Having waited several decades for humanity to do something the only thing we've seen changing thus far is the rate of destruction which continues to accelerate and the degree to which humans feel good about perfunctory politically correct pollyanna or are simply in denial. In the final analysis the only thing left to do is to just get used to it. Practice this. Raise both shoulders a little and say, "Oh, well." See there. Don't you feel just a little bit better already?

Pestering Bourgeois Bohemians in Marginalia Paradise.

In any case, almost all humans are overwhelmingly preoccupied with the cost-benefit considerations for human environmentalism. Ecology without genuine regard for other life forms is environmentalism. The term environmentalism is a clever semantic device society uses to preclude all but superficial consideration of habitat destruction and species extermination from ecological considerations. The aim is to promote warm fuzziness and to lessen guilt as we narrow our thoughts to the anthropocentric sphere of concern. In other words, what is ecology after you've subtracted consideration of other life forms? Economics.

If available imagery were presented properly, we would be able to see the habitat destruction on a day by day basis anywhere and everywhere. At any given square meter of the globe. Like this:

But why should the national aeronautics and space administration do that? Could you imagine the guilt which might be induced? Out of sight, out of mind is a much better approach, don't you think?

Ecosystem to agriculture. Anthropocentrism by design. What a great idea.

Reason? Or Values. Any reasonable person values values more than reason. Therefore stay on Level Two. You have freedom of choice. Stick to your values. Don't bother with Level Three. If you do here's a taste of what you'll find there.

Consideration of peripheral effect, species extinction, toxic waste and pollution, will yield to consideration of root cause, the numbers of Homo sapiens sapiens. The next fifteen years will make unavoidably obvious to all members of mankind that although they have cared tangentially and superficially for biodiversity and its benefits, they will care much more concretely about preserving their own lives. Grain stocks will continue to drop from the current all time low of just a 48 day supply to even more perilously low levels; prices, scarcity, and hunger will increase. Fish stocks upon which one sixth of humanity depends for its protein, will continue to decline to the point at which we will continue to try to recreate the first trophic level while taking mainly from the third and second of four trophic levels. Water supplies will continue to become perilously scarce due to industrial use, desertification and salination. Average temperatures of the earth at various locations will continue to increase along with increases in the average concentration of carbon dioxide in the lower atmosphere to levels exceeding 440 ppm. The climate patterns will be changed with damaging effects to agriculture and life which will be irreversible in the short term. And the potential for massive global wars will increase dramatically. We do not like being thought of as alarmists. We will not find any satisfaction in saying I told you so, then again maybe satisfaction is where you find it. We want people to wake up and make adjustments now, before any more ground is lost. This means bring the population down in both the rich and the poor countries, starting today. It would be an event of very low probability but, even if the world populace were accurately informed and came to accept a correct assesment of our collective situation, today, at this very moment and began to form new values and behaviors, the sheer inertia of our population will still propel the world population upwards towards a completely unstable and unsustainable ten billion. Africa, with half its population under 15 years of age will double its population in fifteen years; Haiti can not sustain its present population of seven million but, will double that to fourteen million in eighteen years. Developed and developing nations will continue to change their topography replacing most of the remaining fragments of their natural ecosystems with patchwork quilt patterns of human development charcteristic of Europe. Canada will have come close to completing the cutting of the second fifty per cent of its forests which are home to three quarters of Canada's species of plants and animals. America will increase its loss of farmland to development from the present 3,000 acres per day. Religious leaders and institutions cannot even lift a finger let alone acknowledge these scientific and demographic realities. As they narrowly define and interpret their belief systems at present, it would not be in their overall long term best interests. Quite the opposite of what would be expected or hoped for, there are instead forces knowingly and with full intention not only working against population reduction but, rather, resolutely dedicated to raising the consumptive and productive capacity of the large and unsustainable world population level. They are not only obstinately in denial of the Hubbert Peak and its significance for resources, they proactively obfuscate issues which would help others to appreciate its meaning. People are almost comical in their vehement denial of reality. Almost comical that is because they make life so unnecessarily difficult. Truth is thus very entertaining because it is indeed stranger than fiction. And it can be orders of magnitude more dangerous.