A big oil discovery in Namibia offers windfall profits to some of the inhabitants, until global heating destroys their country.

So the people of Namibia have a right to a better life — for a couple of decades — thanks to a little trickle-down from the profits of exploiting a giant oilfield and perhaps destroying civilization?

Of course not! Nobody does! There is no room in the world's carbon budget for any new fossil fuel development, whether it is in California, Namibia, the Mediterranean Sea, or anywhere else.

President Correa of Ecuador asked the wealthy countries to pay Ecuador not to exploit a new oil field. No one took up that deal, but the basic is still a good one. Let's give the people of Namibia a better life in exchange for an agreement to keep that oil forever in the ground.

Of course, we need to structure the deal so that corrupt oligarchs don't swipe the money and put it into secret offshore investments.

How progressive Democrats gained power in the New Mexico state legislature, replacing some plutocratist Democrats.

They had to fight against identity politics. If you choose which candidate to support based on matters of identity, you are asking to be manipulated.

A professor of linguistics explains how (and perhaps why) the US has converted racial slurs into taboos that can't be mentioned, not even to discuss them.

I agree that overt racist attitudes should be "ridiculed and socially punished in general society"; it is wrong to make racial slurs against anyone.

However, that is no reason to put taboos on them. I am opposed to putting taboos on any words, for any reason, because they gratuitously tie society in knots. When the taboo is on a racial slur, it prevents discussion of racism, and famous anti-racist statements cannot be quoted.

The same hypersensitivity does its harmful work when students seeing a picture of George Washington with slaves are "triggered," and lose the ability to think and speak about the significance of the fact that Washington owned slaves.

Pesticides are harming the animals that turn dirt into soil, including earthworms and insects.

This is very dangerous.

The Burmese military killed several dissidents with a mail bomb.