Hey, FA and 1/2 the American people did their best to elect the only candidate who has ever shown early (and risky) interest in these areas, and even published on some of them. The Supreme Court did the wrong thing and it may be downhill from here for some time, starting with our own wilderness areas.

The thing about altruism is, that while it exists, it may never be strong enough to deal with this problem without somehow keying "ultimate reality concerns" into a sustainable lifestyle that people - and more critically, corporate enterprise - can accept and adapt to at the daily path level. Otherwise even in democracies, politics will always be driven to sacrifice long term interests (if anyone can agree on those) in the clamor for immediate problem-solving. A start on some fusion thinking like this is beginning to show up. I just ran into a reference today:
www.reason.com/rb/rb081501.html