Ivo Vegter | Free-market columnist and author

18 Jun 2013 Posted by Ivo Vegter

Cape Town première of FrackNation

A new documentary, FrackNation, made by independent Irish journalist Phelim McAleer and his wife, Ann McElhinney, comprehensively debunks the claims against shale gas drilling made in the film Gasland, and reveal its maker, Josh Fox, to be a dishonest propagandist who is not above lying to bolster his image as an eco-saviour.

18 Jun 2013 Posted by Ivo's Marvellous Assistant

The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest

The rape survivor who asked me to write last week’s column deeply regrets doing so. I don’t. I wrote what I considered a thoughtful, measured piece. In return, I was subjected to the most vitriolic abuse imaginable. The examples are shocking. The stereotype that I feared and warned against pales against the ugly reality.

08 Jun 2013 Posted by Ivo's Marvellous Assistant

Props for Extreme Environment

In his excellent and, I think, definitive book, Extreme Environment, author, columnist and scourge of lazy tweeters Ivo Vegter lays out precisely why dogmatic environmentalism causes great harm in emerging economies.

05 Jun 2013 Posted by Ivo's Marvellous Assistant

Raping the discourse about rape

Last week, Leon Louw, executive director of the Free Market Foundation, penned an opinion piece for Business Day in which he compared the government’s strategy with the Business Licensing Bill as analogous to a gang that negotiates with a victim to submit without struggle to being raped by one of their members, or resist and face gang rape. The analogy raises the question: does acquiescence with a lesser violation imply that no violation occurred?

30 May 2013 Posted by Ivo's Marvellous Assistant

Who is the reasonable man?

In our recent debate on shale gas drilling, one salient question that arose is whether the audience represented the “reasonable man”, in the phrasing of environmental activist Jonathan Deal.

25 May 2013 Posted by Ivo's Marvellous Assistant

Fracking: Debating a big deal

At the Franschhoek Literary Festival last weekend, I had another opportunity to debate Jonathan Deal, the environmental activist opposed to shale gas drilling in the Karoo who recently shot to world fame for winning a rich environmental prize. I didn’t come away from the debate with the usual feeling that I had missed opportunities, but it did raise some issues that are worth closer examination.

14 May 2013 Posted by Ivo's Marvellous Assistant

2013 Alan Paton Award Longlist

The Alan Paton Award is a South African literary award for meritorious works of non-fiction. The award is named for Alan Paton, author of Cry, The Beloved Country, and it is sponsored by the Sunday...

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Ivo Vegter is a columnist and the author of Extreme Environment, a book on environmental exaggeration and how it harms emerging economies. He approaches issues from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets.

He grew up in the deep south of Johannesburg, and learnt his politics reading the Weekly Mail and Vrye Weekblad at Wits University during the early years of the country's transition to democracy.

He recently left the city for the lower cost of living of Knysna, where he continues to write about everything under the sun.

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