Matt Ridley: We are too gloomy about the future
2nd June 2010
Journalist and popular science author Matt Ridley has claimed that mankind is far too pessimistic.
Speaking exclusively to Spiked about the foreboding eco-catastrophe being pedalled by the popular press, Ridley said: 'Yes, we are too gloomy about the future.'
He believes that today's apocalyptic sentiment makes optimism a particularly unfashionable mode of thought - a stance he attempts to justify in his latest book The Rational Optimist.
'The imagining of imminent catastrophe is a routine habit and it's been going on all my life,' he told the news provider.
'And to start with, when I was younger, I believed it,' he added.
However, having survived a raft of scare stories, including fears about DDT, the Ebola virus, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, avian flu, swine flu and the cancer epidemic, he believes mankind is just 'crying wolf' when it comes to impending disaster.
A recent UN report claimed that the collapse of biodiversity on planet Earth could be the biggest threat posed to mankind and that conservation should not be an afterthought.