Thousands of results on ocean acidification
Matt Ridley
A comprehensive database confirms it is a greatly exaggerated worry For those who think my recent report on ocean acidification and plankton is unrepresentative, do check out this comprehensive database that has collated all studies. The conclusion is very, very clear: PH reduction has a negative effect only at greater changes than are likely in the […]
Matt Ridley
The not so good old days I heartily recommend a new book called “And the Band Played On” by Christopher Ward, a friend of mine. It’s a best-seller already in the UK. It’s about his grandfather, who was the violinist in the band that played as the Titanic sank. But it’s not about the sinking, […]
Good for the environment, after all
Matt Ridley
After 13 years, everybody sensible now knows the GM crops were good for human beings and the environment too. But admitting it is hard. The Scientific Alliance newsletter has an interesting update on GM food. The public no longer feels the visceral fear of these crops that they did 13 years ago, even in Europe. But […]
Samuel Johnson prize shortlist
Matt Ridley
The film of the book Frank Dikotter’s fine — and vital — book on Mao’s Great famine won the Samuel Johnson prize. But you can see a short film and a discussion about my book on the BBC Culture show here (from minute 17.17 onwards). It’s an honour to have made it to the shortlist.
Matt Ridley
New evidence has been published that the Great Barrier Reef is not in trouble from climate change. The effects of bleaching are short-lived and reversible. When I said this in my book, I was patronised from a great height by a bunch of marine biologists in New Scientist. Will they, and New Scientist, now apologise? […]
Matt Ridley
Walter Russell Mead is always worth reading. Now he has written a two-part essay on Al Gore and the climate debate (part one; part two) that is, I think, very perceptive. It is angry, hard-hitting, and I don’t agree with everything in it, but it somehow gets to to the core of the issue in a […]
Matt Ridley
The Royal Society Book prize The Rational Optimist is one of 13 books long-listed for the Royal Society Book prize for science books. If I make it to the shortlist, this will be my fifth time on this shortlist. (I have yet to win, though!)
Matt Ridley
Rinderpest joins smallpox in oblivion I missed this news last month. For the second time in history, human beings have eradicated a disease altogether. This time it is rinderpest, which people cannot get, only cattle so it’s not such big news as smallpox or (soon?) polio. It’s still good news. Dr Peter Roeder, who […]
Matt Ridley
Tim Harford’s new book understands bottom-up design I have written the following review of Tim Harford’s book Adapt, for Nature magazine: Charles Darwin’s big idea – that blind trial and error can progressively build a powerful simulacrum of purposeful design – got pigeonholed under biology. Yet it always had wider implications in economics, technology and culture. […]
Get the fertiliser out. We can feed the world
Matt Ridley
Farmers can feed the world, if they are allowed to I have the following op-ed in today’s Times: Oxfam’s chief executive, Dame Barbara Stocking, claimed this week in a BBC interview that there will “absolutely not be enough food” to feed the world’s population in a few decades’ time. Such certainty about the future is remarkable, […]
