A year or so ago I caught the people at the Responding to Climate Change website fabricating a story. They had claimed that an island in the Solomons was being evacuated due to climate change but a little research showed that it was due to a tsunami. RTCC had simply tried to appropriate the story for "the cause".
Today I find that RTCC editor Ed King has done a drive-by smear on Matt Ridley, alleging that he is the owner of a coal mine. The insinuation is fairly clear - that Ridley argues against decarbonisation in order to protect this business interest. Of course as readers here know, all subsurface energy assets in the UK are the property of the state so it it is not even possible for Ridley to own the coal under his land. Moreover the mines there are operated by H.J. Banks Ltd: Ridley is therefore neither owner nor operator. In fact he only receives a wayleave from Banks for access to the site.
This does not make him a "coal mine owner".
It's such a stupid smear to boot. Why would anyone seeking to protect an interest in coal argue so forcefully in favour of a shale gas industry being developed in the UK? In the US, coal has been the principal victim of the shale gas industry.
One is therefore forced to step back and consider the interplay between King's ethical standards and his intellectual ones and to consider which has won out in this case.