Social ecologists proffer same prescriptions but with an anarchistic twist. The hierarchical view of nature - with Man at pinnacle - is a reflection of social relations, they suggest. Dismantle latter - and you get rid of former.

The Ethicists appear to be as confounded and ludicrous as their "feet on ground" opponents.

Biocentrists view nature as possessed of an intrinsic value, regardless of its actual or potential utility. They fail to specify, however, how this, even if true, gives rise to rights and commensurate obligations. Nor was their case aided by their association with apocalyptic or survivalist school of environmentalism which has developed proto-fascist tendencies and is gradually being scientifically debunked.

The proponents of deep ecology radicalize ideas of social ecology ad absurdum and postulate a transcendentalist spiritual connection with inanimate (whatever that may be). In consequence, they refuse to intervene to counter or contain natural processes, including diseases and famine.

The politicization of environmental concerns runs gamut from political activism to eco-terrorism. The environmental movement - whether in academe, in media, in non-governmental organizations, or in legislature - is now comprised of a web of bureaucratic interest groups.

Like all bureaucracies, environmental organizations are out to perpetuate themselves, fight heresy and accumulate political clout and money and perks that come with it. They are no longer a disinterested and objective party. They have a stake in apocalypse. That makes them automatically suspect.

Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist", was at receiving end of such self-serving sanctimony. A statistician, he demonstrated that doom and gloom tendered by environmental campaigners, scholars and militants are, at best, dubious and, at worst, outcomes of deliberate manipulation.

The situation is actually improving on many fronts, showed Lomborg: known reserves of fossil fuels and most metals are rising, agricultural production per head is surging, number of famished is declining, biodiversity loss is slowing as do pollution and tropical deforestation. In long run, even in pockets of environmental degradation, in poor and developing countries, rising incomes and attendant drop in birth rates will likely ameliorate situation in long run.

Yet, both camps, optimists and pessimists, rely on partial, irrelevant, or, worse, manipulated data. The multiple authors of "People and Ecosystems", published by World Resources Institute, World Bank and United Nations conclude: "Our knowledge of ecosystems has increased dramatically, but it simply has not kept pace with our ability to alter them."

Quoted by The Economist, Daniel Esty of Yale, leader of an environmental project sponsored by World Economic Forum, exclaimed:

"Why hasn't anyone done careful environmental measurement before? Businessmen always say, ‘what matters gets measured'. Social scientists started quantitative measurement 30 years ago, and even political science turned to hard numbers 15 years ago. Yet look at environmental policy, and data are lousy."

Nor is this dearth of reliable and unequivocal information likely to end soon. Even Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, supported by numerous development agencies and environmental groups, is seriously under-financed. The conspiracy-minded attribute this curious void to self-serving designs of apocalyptic school of environmentalism. Ignorance and fear, they point out, are among fanatic's most useful allies. They also make for good copy.

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory Bellaonline, and Suite101 .

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com

But while suicide is chiefly intended to terminate a life – other acts are aimed at perpetuating, strengthening, and defending values or other people. Many - not only religious people - are appalled by choice implied in suicide - of death over life. They feel that it demeans life and abnegates its meaning.

Life's meaning - outcome of active selection by individual - is either external (such as God's plan) or internal, outcome of an arbitrary frame of reference, such as having a career goal. Our life is rendered meaningful only by integrating into an eternal thing, process, design, or being. Suicide makes life trivial because act is not natural - not part of eternal framework, undying process, timeless cycle of birth and death. Suicide is a break with eternity.

Henry Sidgwick said that only conscious (i.e., intelligent) beings can appreciate values and meanings. So, life is significant to conscious, intelligent, though finite, beings - because it is a part of some eternal goal, plan, process, thing, design, or being. Suicide flies in face of Sidgwick's dictum. It is a statement by an intelligent and conscious being about meaninglessness of life.

If suicide is a statement, than society, in this case, is against freedom of expression. In case of suicide, free speech dissonantly clashes with sanctity of a meaningful life. To rid itself of anxiety brought on by this conflict, society cast suicide as a depraved or even criminal act and its perpetrators are much castigated.

The suicide violates not only social contract - but, many will add, covenants with God or nature. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in "Summa Theologiae" that - since organisms strive to survive - suicide is an unnatural act. Moreover, it adversely affects community and violates property rights of God, imputed owner of one's spirit. Christianity regards immortal soul as a gift and, in Jewish writings, it is a deposit. Suicide amounts to abuse or misuse of God's possessions, temporarily lodged in a corporeal mansion.

This paternalism was propagated, centuries later, by Sir William Blackstone, codifier of British Law. Suicide - being self-murder - is a grave felony, which state has a right to prevent and to punish for. In certain countries this still is case. In Israel, for instance, a soldier is considered to be "military property" and an attempted suicide is severely punished as "a corruption of an army chattel".

Paternalism, a malignant mutation of benevolence, is about objectifying people and treating them as possessions. Even fully-informed and consenting adults are not granted full, unmitigated autonomy, freedom, and privacy. This tends to breed "victimless crimes". The "culprits" - gamblers, homosexuals, communists, suicides, drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes – are "protected from themselves" by an intrusive nanny state.

The possession of a right by a person imposes on others a corresponding obligation not to act to frustrate its exercise. Suicide is often choice of a mentally and legally competent adult. Life is such a basic and deep set phenomenon that even incompetents - mentally retarded or mentally insane or minors - can fully gauge its significance and make "informed" decisions, in my view.

The paternalists claim counterfactually that no competent adult "in his right mind" will ever decide to commit suicide. They cite cases of suicides who survived and felt very happy that they have - as a compelling reason to intervene. But we all make irreversible decisions for which, sometimes, we are sorry. It gives no one right to interfere.

Paternalism is a slippery slope. Should state be allowed to prevent birth of a genetically defective child or forbid his parents to marry in first place? Should unhealthy adults be forced to abstain from smoking, or steer clear from alcohol? Should they be coerced to exercise?

Suicide is subject to a double moral standard. People are permitted - nay, encouraged - to sacrifice their life only in certain, socially sanctioned, ways. To die on battlefield or in defense of one's religion is commendable. This hypocrisy reveals how power structures - state, institutional religion, political parties, national movements - aim to monopolize lives of citizens and adherents to do with as they see fit. Suicide threatens this monopoly. Hence taboo.

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory Bellaonline, and Suite101 .

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com