'Save the --- ', or how to assign significance?

I just posted these two messages on my Facebook wall.

"Save Johannesburg. eGoli is threatened by a rising tide of toxic mine water 530m below the surface and rising at a rate of 18m meters a month. But can Johannesburg be saved - or should we evacuate? (See today's Argus p. 5)"

"Save the arum lily micro frog - don't buy illegally picked arum lilies. This little frog breeds in the water and dew held in the lily's cup, and indiscriminate harvesting threatens its survival.( See today's Argus, page 9.)"

They illustrate an ongoing problem – a spin-off of the ‘information age’. We are constantly bombarded by bits of information and by a variety of appeals – from ‘save the micro frog’ to ‘save the Liesbeck’ to ‘save the carthorses’ to ‘save the fynbos’ to ‘save the whales’ to ‘save the planet’. Is there an ascending order of significance? How to assign our time and energy (given that this is finite)? Do we each just pick whatever is in closest proximity to us, or whatever grabs our attention? The smaller and closer, the more likely we are to see some kind of result for our efforts. The larger the appeal (‘save the planet’) the more remote it becomes, and the punier our efforts seem. Do we start in our own backyard (micro frogs, carthorses, the Liesbeck River, the fynbos) and hope that cumulatively our efforts add up to something?

I suppose the only thing that is certain is that its better to do something than nothing. As someone once said, ‘Nothing will come of nothing.’