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The origins and implications of the technology behind bitcoin My Times column on who started bitcoin and what it means: Amid the hurly-burly of war, disease and politics, you might be forgiven for not paying much attention to bitcoin, the electronic form of money favoured by radical libertarians and drug dealers. Yet it is possible […]

Review of Steven Johnson’s book on innovation My review of Steven Johnson’s book How We Got To Now appeared in the Times:   The meteorologist Edward Lorenz famously asked, in the title of a lecture in 1972: “does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”, and the phrase […]

Loyalties are to nation and county, rather than region and continent My Times column on English devolution following the Scottish independence referendum:   As part of the 1 per cent of England’s population that lives north of Hadrian’s Wall, I have found the past few weeks more than usually intriguing. It was fascinating to find […]

Serial hyperbole does the environmental movement no favours My recent Times column argued that the alleged healing of the ozone layer is exaggerated, but so was the impact of the ozone hole over Antarctica:   The ozone layer is healing. Or so said the news last week. Thanks to a treaty signed in Montreal in 1989 […]

The explanations for the “pause” only make it less threatening in future My op-ed in the Wall Street Journal addresses the latest explanations for the “pause” in global warming and their implications. I have responded to an ill-informed critique of the article below.   On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a party for […]

It’s an official protection racket My Times column last week was on the historical roots of government:   Nobody seems to agree whether Islamic State is best described as a gang of criminals, a terrorist organisation or a religious movement. It clearly has a bit of all three. But don’t forget that it aspires, for […]

It’s worked elsewhere My recent Times column was on the stagnation of European economic growth rates: The financial crisis was supposed to have discredited the “Anglo-Saxon” model of economic management as surely as the fall of the Berlin wall discredited communism. Yet last week’s numbers on economic growth show emphatically the opposite. The British economy is […]

In a time of widespread violence and disease, good news is no news The Times carried my article arguing that things are still going well for the world as a whole even in a month of war, terror and disease. I have illustrated it with two superb charts from ourworldindata.org, a website being developed by […]

In a time of widespread violence and disease, good news is no news The Times carried my article arguing that things are still going well for the world as a whole even in a month of war, terror and disease. I have illustrated it with two superb charts from ourworldindata.org, a website being developed by […]

Grouse moors have five times the wading bird life of other moors My column in the Times on 11th August: Tomorrow sees the start of the red grouse shooting season, a sport under attack as never before, with a petition to ban it, and campaigns to get supermarkets to stop selling grouse meat. As somebody […]