Private initiatives show it is possible to reduce the use of palm oil, the production of which is ecologically destructive.

However, I suspect that it will require government actions such as tariffs to make a big dent in the use of palm oil. This would require defeating free exploitation treaties.

UK PM Cameron contemptuously brushed off concern for human rights in Kazakhstan, saying that his reason for going there was oil and profits, not human rights.

Of course, we knew already that he puts money above people, but now he has admitted it.

Cameron thus gained the personal endorsement of the strongman of Kazakhstan:

That's a strong recommendation for Britons to vote for some other party, but which one would be better? Not New Labour, which says it will not try to reverse most of the harm that the Conservatives have done. Perhaps the Green Party.

A "hotshot" crew of elite firefighters was killed, every last one, because the Arizona fire spread too fast for them.

High heat and drought and dead trees, which global heating tends to cause, make fires spread faster. In effect, these men were killed by global heating, and it's going to kill a lot more as it gets hotter.

Euro-austerity continues making unemployment rise.

Timbuktu has been saved from theocratic rule, but it is not back to normal or even close.