Matt Ridley
Why climate policies are doing more harm than climate change I have written five articles on climate change science and policy in the past week, for Scientific American, The Times (twice), the Wall Street Journal and the Spectator. They follow here in the form of a lengthy essay. Sentences in square brackets have been added […]
Matt Ridley
Non-belief is the fastest growing category of belief; Islamists are worried My Times column on the rise of non-belief: Fifty years ago, after the cracking of the genetic code, Francis Crick was so confident religion would fade that he offered a prize for the best future use for Cambridge’s college chapels. Swimming pools, said […]
Wind makes electricity expensive and unreliable without cutting emissions
Matt Ridley
By preventing investment in gas, the dash for wind has done real harm My Times article on wind power is below. An astonishingly poor attack on the article was made in The Guardian by Mark Lynas. He failed to address all the main points I made: he failed to challenge the argument that wind power […]
The western environmental movement’s role in China’s one-child policy
Matt Ridley
The policy’s father, Song Jian, got the idea directly from Malthusians My Times column on the western origin of the one-child policy: The abolition of China’s one-child policy brings to an end one of the most futile and inhumane experiments in top-down social engineering the world has seen. I say futile because it did […]
The House of Lords challenges the House of Commons
Matt Ridley
As I predicted after the election, the opposition is using the unelected Lords to block legislation My Times column on the constitutional confrontation between the Lords and the Commons: ‘How can you have a constitutional crisis without a constitution?” asked a Dutch friend coming to a meeting in the House of Lords last week. […]
The benefits of carbon dioxide
Matt Ridley
Global greening may save more lives and forests than warming costs My Times Column on the surprisingly large benefits of carbon dioxide emissions: France’s leading television weather forecaster, Philippe Verdier, was taken off air last week for writing that there are “positive consequences” of climate change. Freeman Dyson, professor emeritus of mathematical physics and […]
Perverse regulation will slow the death of smoking
Matt Ridley
The EU’s tobacco product directive hits vaping harder than smoking My Times column on the EU’s idiotic attack on vaping: When regulation goes wrong, people call for more regulation. Sometimes, though, regulation is the cause of the original problem. It is steadily becoming clear that the way the European Union does regulation is especially pernicious. […]
Matt Ridley
Telomerase activation just might lead to cures for ageing itself My Times column on the possibility that old age might itself be cured now we understand telomeres: Squeezed between falling birth rates and better healthcare, the world population is getting rapidly older. Learning how to deal with that is one of the great challenges […]
Voting to leave the EU looks like Britain’s best option
Matt Ridley
Both sides now agree that the renegotiation will make little difference My Times column on Britain’s renegotiation with the European Union: So the battle lines are drawn. “Vote Leave, Take Control” (of which I am a vice-president) is the campaign to leave the European Union if the renegotiation is inadequate. It launched last week […]
Bumper harvests release land for nature
Matt Ridley
Wheat yields hit new records thanks to precision farming My Times column on farm yields and the prospects for feeding the world in future: This week’s autumn equinox is traditionally the time for the harvest festival. I have just taken a ride on the combine harvester cutting wheat on my farm. It is such […]
