Top 25 Quotes by Matt Ridley of 33 - Page 2

Ocean acidification looks suspiciously like a back-up plan by the environmental pressure groups in case the climate fails to warm: another try at condemning fossil fuels. [...] Even if the world warms as much as the

Ocean acidification looks suspiciously like a back-up plan by the environmental pressure groups in case the climate fails to warm: another try at condemning fossil fuels. [...] Even if the world warms as much as the consensus expects, the net harm still looks small alongside the real harm now being done by preventable causes; and if it does warm this much, it will be because more people are rich enough to afford to do something about it.

Matt Ridley

Real, Ocean, Pressure Groups

The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 coined the term ‘meme’ for a unit of cultural imitation.

Matt Ridley

Imitation, Memes, Term

Matt Ridley (2010). “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves”, p.5, HarperCollins UK

Simple determinism, whether of the genetic or environmental kind, is a depressing prospect for those with a fondness for free will.

Matt Ridley

Depressing, Simple, Environmental

Uniqueness is the commodity of glut.

Matt Ridley

Commodity, Uniqueness

We consciously decide whether to consider people; we fall in love despite ourselves; we entirely fail to fall in love with people who fall in love with us. It is a mightily complicated business.

Matt Ridley

Falling In Love, People, Complicated

Note even Jonathan Swift would dare to write a satire in which politicians argued that - in a world where species are vanishing and more than a billion people are barely able to afford to eat - it would somehow be good for the planet to clear rain-forests to grow palm oil, or give up food-crop land to grow biofuels, solely so that people could burn fuel derived from carbohydrate rather than hydrocarbons in their cars, thus driving up the price of food for the poor. Ludicrous is too weak a word for this heinous crime.

Matt Ridley

Giving Up, Rain, Writing