Matt Ridley puts his money where his mouth is!

As most of you know, Matt Ridley is a distinguished and aristocratic academic, a convinced but practical libertarian and a decided sceptic on AGW.  Any one of those, of course, makes him 'an enemy of the people' to the likes of little Georgie 'Moonbat' at The Guardian but all three together place him quite beyond the pale!  However, I always try to judge a man by what he does rather than what he says and judging by a report at The Coffee House, Matt Ridley is a very pukka chap!  Being the son of a viscount, naturally he has a family trust (wish I had one!) which owns land some of which is rented out.  Ridley was dismayed to learn that some of this land, which earned his trust £8,500 a year, was going to be used for wind turbine machines, a scam an industry which Ridley has castigated in the past.  Unable to stop the activity, he has volunteered £8,500 as an annual prize for the best essay exposing 'Greenie' twaddle.  That's what I call putting your money where your mouth is.  Well done, sir, you're a gentleman and a scholar!

 

Comments

[A K Haart]

I like Matt Ridley, he writes well and has his head screwed on. That's a generous prize too and I think we'll get some cracking essays out of it. Not just the winner too. An all round excellent move.

[Webwrights]

I don't know whether you have referred to it in the past, but Ridley's book, 'The Rational Optimist', is a total delight. It is the book for every oldie who's worried about what sort of wreckage of a world they are bequeathing to their descendants. In brief, his contention is that the world has got better, richer, healthier, wiser, more innovative, cheaper, faster, more pleasant, longer-lived, better fed and so on for every generation since mankind first got up off its knuckles. There is no reason to suppose that we are suddenly going to go into reverse.

Treat yourselves to a copy; it's out in paperback for the cheapskates. Not only will you feel better for reading it, but the royalties will help Ridley to defray the cost of his noble prize!

[David Duff]

Gentlemen, I agree with you both. I cannot for the life of me think why I have not read more of him but, alas, the only book of his I possess is "The Red Queen" which made a huge impression on me at the time.