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Welcome to Matt Ridley's Blog

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Matt Ridley is the author of provocative books on evolution, genetics and society. His books have sold over a million copies, been translated into thirty languages, and have won several awards.

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Matt Ridley's latest book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, co-authored with scientist Alina Chan from Harvard and MIT's Broad Institute, is now available in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.

    Archive for date: March, 2018

  • Energy return on energy invested and the promise of fusion

    Published on: Monday, 26 March, 2018

    Unlimited cheap energy would transform society

    My Times column on Britain's energy options:

     

    Until 2004 Britain was a net energy exporter. Today, it imports about half its energy. Some of that, in the form of coal and liquefied natural gas, comes directly from Russia, which also supplies a third of Europe’s gas through pipelines. The unprecedented “gas deficit warning” of March 2 was a sharp reminder of our dependence on imports.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • Good news is gradual, bad news sudden

    Published on: Sunday, 18 March, 2018

    The bias towards bad news is getting worse, and affecting how we act

    My Times column on the how pessimism bias affects the way we think:

     

    ‘Deadly new epidemic called Disease X could kill millions, scientists warn,” read one headline at the weekend. “WHO issues global alert for potential pandemic,” read another. Apparently frustrated by the way real infectious diseases keep failing to wipe us out, it seems that the nannies at the World Health Organisation have decided to invent a fictitious one.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • Britain's housing crisis is caused by the wrong kind of regulation

    Published on: Monday, 12 March, 2018

    Restricting whether you can build, rather than what, drives up prices

    My Times column on Britain's housing crisis:

    Sajid Javid, the Housing (etc) secretary, is right – and brave -- to go on the warpath about Britain’s housing crisis in his new national planning framework, to be launched today. Britain’s housing costs are absurdly high by international standards: eight times average earnings in England, 15 in London. A mortgage deposit that took a few years to earn in the early 1990s can now take somebody decades to earn. Average rents in the UK are almost 50% higher than average rents in Germany, France and crowded Holland.

    Britain really is an outlier in this respect. Knightsbridge has overtaken Monaco in rental levels. Wealthy, crowded Switzerland has falling house prices and lower rents than Britain. Over recent decades, most things people buy have become more affordable – food, clothing, communication – and the cost of building a house has come down too. Yet the price you pay for it in Britain, either as a buyer or a tenant, has gone up and up.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
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