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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 […]

The Jevons paradox in medical technology My column in The Times on healthcare costs: Babies got cheaper this week. Twice. First, Belgian scientists announced that their new method has the potential to cut the costs of some in-vitro fertilisation treatments from £5,000 to below £200. Their cut-price recipe requires little more than baking soda and […]

The extreme weather scam exposed in a new book My review of Taxing Air, by Bob Carter and John Spooner, is in The Australian newspaper: WHEN the history of the global warming scare comes to be written, a chapter should be devoted to the way the message had to be altered to keep the show […]

Evidence, not consensus, is what counts My latest (and last) Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal: Last week a friend chided me for not agreeing with the scientific consensus that climate change is likely to be dangerous. I responded that, according to polls, the “consensus” about climate change only extends to the […]