(FORTUNE Magazine) – On the assumption that concerned citizens are beyond hope when it comes to environmental policy, Kindly Dr. Keeping Up herewith offers a guide for those who remain steadfastly unconcerned about the trees and owls in Oregon but would still like a clue or two about what in G-d's name is going on out there and would also appreciate a fill-in on the Watergate connection. Dear Kindly: You posit that the infamous 1972 break-in is implicated in the federal decision, now being reviewed, to clobber the Northwest's logging economy so as to save a few owls that maybe don't even need saving? One reasons as follows: The Endangered Species Act of 1973, which insanely requires protection of any endangered weed or vermin out of nature's back alley, could only have been supported and instantly signed by Dick because he was desperate to cuddle up with tree-huggers and other libs then menacingly muttering about what he knew and when he cognized it. Dear Up: Are you seriously arguing that the average species being protected is on a par with tenement rats lovabilitywise? No, but the law firmly states that all endangered species are entitled to the same degree of protection, giving weeds and rats exactly the same rights as condors and bisons. Furthermore, it stands to reason that we have at least heard about the more appealing species, and that the 98.6% not yet introduced will mostly be found under rocks not yet turned over. Dear Doc: You state that the law is applicable to species that have not yet even been identified? Respected Harvard Professor Edward O. Wilson says we have identified only 1.4 million species out of 100 million, this being the latest bounteous estimate, up from only a few million four or five years ago. But that of course is only species. Dear Upkeep: Eh? Is there some other category eligible for protection? Not yet, but the latest clamor from concerned biologist Paul Ehrlich is that we should rewrite the law so that it also protects ''populations,'' meaning the numerous groups within species. This goes for plants as well as animals. Dear Upkeep: You are of course alluding to the compulsive gambler who lost the $1,000 bet with Julian Simon. None other. Paul is the guy who has been warning for decades that humankind will run out of resources if it continues to pillage our defenseless planet, and who ended up making this bet with economist Julian Simon in which Ehrlich attempted to identify some commodities whose prices would be driven skyward by shortages, and of course the prices all declined in real terms, not that this changed his mind about the planet's needing more protection from people. Dear Kindly Doc: Returning to the spotted owl, would you proffer a probability distribution on possible outcomes in Oregon. Since the Endangered Species Committee, a.k.a. the God Squad, is a political entity, we will get a compromise permitting more growth in the logging sector and fewer protected habitats in the owl sector. Dear Dr. Up: You mean that the squad, comprising numerous high-placed government officials now being nervously led by the Secretary of the Interior, will live up to its sacrosanct sobriquet and toss off a thunderbolt hinting that a certain spotted ornithoid has overstayed its welcome? It won't quite read that way. We would expect somewhat more emphasis on certain low-key factual assertions bearing on the cost-benefit ratio in Oregon, beginning with the proposition being put forward by Bureau of Land Management expert witness E. Linwood Smith, Ph.D., who has genetic studies ! stating that the species being protected in the Northwest is essentially the same bird flourishing in numerous other habitats from Southern California to British Columbia. So the impact of additional timber sales in Oregon would be quite trivial specieswise. Dear Up: You seem to be saying something unbelievable: that costs and benefits can sometimes be considered in rendering these decisions on endangered species? Ah, yes. The interesting thing about the God Squad is that its deliberations are the only ones in which cost-benefit judgments may result in a species' being allowed to die out. The basic law permits these judgments only when government operations are involved -- in this case operations of the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon forests. Dear Kindly Doctor: You are saying that only God is allowed to be rational? Correct-o. A private developer who runs into an endangered worm may not make a cost-benefit case for terminating it. Dear Doc: And why do we have a law that assumes the slitherer is always worth saving when it runs up against business? Because Congress has a religious faith in the importance of saving species menaced by business. Also because of Watergate.