> If our greatest environmental efforts can at best end in failure, then those efforts are wasted and we're better off taking no action.

??? "I'm going to die someday, so I might as well subsist on nothing but sugar and alcohol 'til then?"

Anyway, characterizing our efforts as "greatest" is far too generous. They were the efforts we gave. Not the greatest possible efforts that could be given. If biodiversity were the priority, we would have solved this problem.