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Economic growth means the time it takes to do something falls My recent Times column on Moore’s Law, technological progress and economic growth: The law that has changed our lives most in the past 50 years may be about to be repealed, even though it was never even on the statute book. I am referring […]

Climate change could be real but do less harm than climate policy My luke-warming column in the Times on 28th September 2013, pleaded in vain for a moderate middle approach to climate change, and drew a parallel with the nature-nurture debate. Here’s what I wrote: In the climate debate, which side are you on? Do […]

Ed Miliband insists on trebling and freezing prices at the same time My regular Times column from 26th September 2013: Hypocrisy can be a beautiful thing when done well. To go, as Ed Miliband has done, within four years, from being the minister insisting that energy prices must rise — so uncompetitive green energy producers […]

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 […]