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Book review of a fine account of one summer My review in The Times of Bill Bryson’s fine book, “One Summer”. The summer of 1927 in the United States seems at first glance an odd subject for a book. We all know what happened in 1914, or 1929, but what’s so special about the 86th […]

Rapid increases in numbers reaching 100, but no change in record lifespan My Times column on how the world’s oldest people are getting younger: The two oldest men in the world died recently. Jiroemon Kimura, a 116-year-old, died in June in Japan after becoming the oldest man yet recorded. His successor Salustiano Sanchez, aged 112 […]

Global warming could be a net benefit during this century My article in the Review section of the Wall Street Journal: Later this month, a long-awaited event that last happened in 2007 will recur. Like a returning comet, it will be taken to portend ominous happenings. I refer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s […]

Sir David Attenborough’s pessimism is misplaced My recent column in the Times addresses the demographic transition and land-sparing: Publicising his imminent new series about the evolution of animals, Sir David Attenborough said in an interview this week that he thought a reduction in human population during this century is impossible and “we’re lucky to be […]

The economist, the market and the environment My tribute to Ronald Coase, who has died aged 102, in The Times:   It’s not often that the ideas of a 102-year-old have as much relevance to the future as the past. But the death this week of Ronald Coase, one of the world’s most cited economists, comes […]

I don’t know if tyranny or terrorism is the greater threat Belatedly, here is my Times column from last week on the case of David Miranda’s detention at Heathrow airport: I am not usually an indecisive person who sees both sides of a question. But the case of Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and David Miranda […]

Wind power does more environmental harm My Times column on the environmental effects of fracking and wind power: It was the American senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who once said: “You are entitled to your opinions, but not to your own facts.” In the debate over shale gas – I refuse to call it the fracking […]

The deliberate frustration of golden rice is a humanitarian crime Belated posting of my recent Times column on golden rice with links: It was over harlequin ducks that we bonded. Ten years ago, at a meeting in Monterey, California, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA, I bumped into […]

On the opportunity costs of huge infrastructure projects My latest column in The Times: This is an article about a railway, but it begins with a wall; bear with me. I live not far from the line of Hadrian’s Wall and I often take visitors to marvel at its almost 1,900-year-old stones. That the Romans […]

More than just a war hero and victim of persecution My Times column: Tomorrow the House of Lords gives a second reading to Lord Sharkey’s Bill to pardon Alan Turing, the mathematician, computer pioneer and code-cracking hero of the Second World War. In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for being gay (he had reported a burglary […]