The usually lucid Economist's occasionally obtuse coverage of climate change has puzzled readers for decades How could a newspaper of such impressive technological acumen and computer savvy, born of the London School of Economics, swallow and regurgitate so much scientific hogwash from London's Telegraph and Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation ?
A few years ago, the departure of one anonymous columnist shed some light on the matter. The unmasking of Matt Ridley as one of the Economist's best science writers revealed he was scarcely disinterested in climate and energy policy matters.
Matt is no ordinary coal baron. Viscount Ridley's Northumbrian lands have yielded the black stuff since the Industrial Revolution's dawn, creating enough coal spoil to turn one of his family estates
into an Earth Art tourist attraction, the bodacious 1.5 million ton Boudicca entitled
Unlike Viscount Monckton, whose title was created in 1956 , Matt enjoys an hereditary seat, and vote, in the House of Lords.
It transpires that Economist writers long enjoyed scientific carte blanche because from 1977 to 1993 was edited by subsequent deputy governor of the Bank of England, Rupert Pennant-Rea, who progressed from Peterhouse. an Anglican boarding school near Marandellas, Rhodesia, to Trinity College, Dublin, and on to a MA from Manchester University,without ever having taken a science course.
Pennant-Rea, who first picked up a science primer at age 70, writes in The Financial Times:
“ My plan to study science produced mixed reactions from family and friends — and also from FT readers...
My particular favourite is the periodic table, which I had never even heard of a year ago.”
CF:
A few years ago, the departure of one anonymous columnist shed some light on the matter. The unmasking of Matt Ridley as one of the Economist's best science writers revealed he was scarcely disinterested in climate and energy policy matters.
Matt is no ordinary coal baron. Viscount Ridley's Northumbrian lands have yielded the black stuff since the Industrial Revolution's dawn, creating enough coal spoil to turn one of his family estates
into an Earth Art tourist attraction, the bodacious 1.5 million ton Boudicca entitled
Northumberlandia ,
Unlike Viscount Monckton, whose title was created in 1956 , Matt enjoys an hereditary seat, and vote, in the House of Lords.
It transpires that Economist writers long enjoyed scientific carte blanche because from 1977 to 1993 was edited by subsequent deputy governor of the Bank of England, Rupert Pennant-Rea, who progressed from Peterhouse. an Anglican boarding school near Marandellas, Rhodesia, to Trinity College, Dublin, and on to a MA from Manchester University,without ever having taken a science course.
Pennant-Rea, who first picked up a science primer at age 70, writes in The Financial Times:
“ My plan to study science produced mixed reactions from family and friends — and also from FT readers...
My particular favourite is the periodic table, which I had never even heard of a year ago.”
CF:
Discovering the beauty of science through a GCSE course | Financial ...
https://www.ft.com/content/d765bf0e-0212-11e9-bf0f-53b8511afd73
