Liberty
Matt Ridley on Britain’s Electric Vehicle Mandate
In a new piece in the Daily Mail, the well-known science writer explains why he’ll be buying a new gas powered car before the UK’s electric vehicle mandate goes into…
Matt Ridley
British author and journalist
Health Care
31 Reasons to Suspect Covid May Have Originated in a Chinese Lab
Matt Ridley lays them out in this poetical Twitter thread: If a pandemic caused by a new bat-derived sars-like virus breaks out in a city and The city has no similar…
Health Care
“Lockdowns … probably delayed the evolution of the virus into a milder form.”
That’s a key line from a Twitter thread by “rational optimist” Matt Ridley. Here’s the whole thread: Earlier in the year the same was said about the alpha (Kent) variant,…
Health Care
Matt Ridley Nails It, As Usual
In a recent tweet, the English science journalist and member of the House of Lords says, “We’ve seen too many ill-thought-out, top-down command and control measures to minimise all risks,…
Health Care
World Health Organization Gets a Well-Deserved Thrashing
Matt Ridley lays it on in a recent piece that appeared in the Telegraph: There are three charges against WHO. First, it failed to prepare the world for a pandemic,…
Research Brief
Budget, Taxation & Economy
JLF Research Division: COVID-19 review for March
Three weeks ago today, Governor Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency due to the spread of COVID-19. One day later, John Locke Foundation researchers paused all other projects and got to…
Energy
Coronavirus: If Matt Ridley’s Worried, We Should All Be Worried
In a recent opinion piece called “Coronavirus is the wolf on the loose,”English science writer Matt Ridley begins by saying: In Aesop’s fable about the boy who cried “Wolf!”, the…
Energy
“The anti-fracking movement is to geology as the anti-vaxx movement is to medicine.”
From this tweet: H/T: Matt Ridley
Law & Public Safety
Peace Through Strength
Matt Ridley posted a video that perfectly illustrates my preferred approach to foreign policy: Amazing: a termite track (top) and an ant track (bottom) • each travelling insect is protected…
Energy
Start the New Year Right with Some Good News!
Just before Christmas, Matt Ridley published a piece in the Spectator under the title, “We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously.” It’s a good antidote to the…
Energy
Talk About Fake News!
In a recent Spectator article called “Lying with science: a guide to myth debunking,” Matt Ridley begins by observing that, “Pseudoscience is on the rise – and the media is completely…
Budget, Taxation & Economy
England Didn’t Win the World Cup, but It’s Number 1 in Vaping
Matt Ridley explains how it happened at the Rational Optimist: More people use ecigarettes in the UK than in any other European country. It’s more officially encouraged than in the…