Dare to be an optimist! - The Globe and Mail

Alarmism over global warming, [British science writer Matt Ridley] predicts, will meet the same fate as alarmism over cancer epidemics. Even though the Earth may indeed be warming, he’s confident that humankind will adapt. He even has the audacity to argue that fossil fuels are, on the whole, a good thing. “You can regret the sinful profligacy of the modern world, which is the conventional reaction,” he told The Guardian. “Or you can conclude that were it not for fossil fuels, 99 per cent of people would have to live in slavery for the rest to have a decent standard of living, as indeed they did in Bronze Age empires.”