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Why trade restriction lowers everybody’s living standards   (picture from Eden’s Path) Steve Landsburg, writing at The Big Questions, takes issue with Paul Krugman’s argument that restricting free trade cannot cause a depression: Paul Krugman writes that  trade does not equal jobs and concludes that trade restrictions cannot even in principle trigger a depression. After all, restricting trade […]

The Economist turns to astrology Here’s a letter I sent to the editor of The Economist: Sir, Last winter, we were told by scientists that it was `stupid’ to take the cold weather as evidence against global warming. Yet this winter you are quite happy to speculate, entirely against the consensus view, that the cold […]

The environmental cost of NOT using a new fuel There is a big new report on shale gas from the No Hot Air website. It is far too expensive for me, but here is a summary of what it supposedly concludes: The key issue going forward for natural gas is not managing supply, but creating demand. […]

How to guide children to use the internet in groups to educate themselves My latest Wall Street Journal column is on the work of Sugata Mitra, who is turning education upside down with the help of the internet:     His TED talkwas amazing and I have since shared some very enjoyable connversation with him over Chinese […]

Yes, cold weather is just weather. But that’s the point.     I have an op-ed in today’s Times on the subject of whether the man-made climate signal is going to be visible against the weather noise. Here is the gist of it, with some links. I have just cleared fresh snow in my back […]

Has the climate change obsession harmed conservation? For some time now I have been aware of environmentalists who dislike the way their agendas have been hijacked by climate change. The orthodox view is that climate change is raising the profile of all environmental issues, but is it? Can it really be easier to raise money […]

A debate in the Wall Street Journal     Update: here are some readers’ letters about our exchange. I’ve never arm-wrestled Bill Gates, but we have now had a good natured debate in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Here’s his effort, and here’s mine. A quote from his: Although I strongly disagree with what Mr. Ridley […]

Britain is burying its head in the sand about a new technology that is good for the environment Update: I have misled the reader about the quantity of neodymium in a wind turbine magnet. The magnet is not pure neodymium, but an alloy of Nd, iron and Boron. So there’s a lot less than 2.5 […]

Here is a spectacular speech by my good friend June Arunga, on optimism about Africa. “The broad generalisations that label Africa a continent of failure and business losses are plain wrong. They are part of that same pessimism that insists the only products worth investing in are misery and minerals.”

A response from scientists on ocean acidifciation We are getting somewhere. There is a long response to my Times article from ocean acidification scientists  here. This makes me rather happy. The response confirms the accuracy of my main points. I have sent the following response to Nature’s website, which carried a report on this matter: I […]