> as useless

It's not useless, it's arid.

> which plays a key role in how the climate works

As does ever other square meter on Earth, and its natural abundant resource could be leveraged to even greater overall good.

> Extractive industry ... like yet more colonialism.

I'm not sure how we got here, or what your actual concern is.

Yeah, it would be terrible to offer the citizens of Chad, Mali, Tunisia, Libya, etc an opportunity to get revenue. Only Western democracies like Norway and Australia are allowed to extract substances!