Dennis Avery

 Credentials

According to his biography at the Hudson Institute, Avery studied agricultural economics at Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin.

 Background

Dennis Avery is the director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, where he edits Global Food Quarterly.

According to his biography at the Center for Global Food Issues, Avery is a supporter of biotechnology, pesticides, irradiation, factory farming and free trade. He also considers himself an expert on "agriculture, environment, world hunger issues, biotechnology and pesticides, trade, and water issues." In addition to his self-professed areas of expertse, Avery comments frequently on global warming science and policy.

Avery studied agricultural economics at Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin.

Stance on Climate Change

• According to a study conducted by Avery and Fred Singer, "Considered collectively, there is clear and convincing evidence of a 1,500-year climate cycle. And if the current warming trend is part of an entirely natural cycle, as Singer and Avery conclude, then actions to prevent further warming would be futile, could impose substantial costs upon the global economy and lessen the ability of the world's peoples to adapt to the impacts of climate change." [9]

• Avery has also said that the next twenty to thirty years will bring us cooler temperatures: "The earth's temperatures have dropped an average of .6 Celsius in the last two years. The Pacific Ocean is telling us, as it has told us 10 times in the past 400 years, you're going to get cooler." [4]

Key Quotes

"Why did most of our moderate modern warming take place before 1940 (with 1934 being the warmest year) and why haven't we had any warming over the last nine years? Could it possibly be the moderate natural 1,500-year cycle revealed in the ice cores and seabed sediments?" [2]

Key Deeds

March, 2008

Spoke at the Heartland Institute's 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. [6]

April 16, 2007

Avery wrote an article that disagrees with banning DDT in North America and Europe as well as reducing its use in third-world countries. Avery's article indirectly compares Rachel Carson, whose books inspired the ban on DDT and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, to Hitler.

Avery believes that the ban on DDT led to the death of "five times as many as Hitler killed in his concentration camps." He describes the ban on DDT as causing the majority of "poverty and human degradation today." He further argues that DDT was falsely accused of causing the near-extinction of certain bird species.

September 11, 2006

Avery, along with the prolific global warming denier S. Fred Singer, published a book titled Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years, in which they argue that global warming is natural phenomenon.

Avery has given talks on the subject, this one sponsored by the Heartland Institute. Avery's talk was attended by a scientist at RealClimate who wrote an article countering Avery's points here.

April, 1993

An April, 1993 Wall Street Journal opinion piece cites Avery as claiming "organic farming would produce more cancer, not less" because "it's hard to get kids to eat shabby-looking produce." In 1999, Avery made similar claims, stating that "[o]rganic is now obviously the deadly choice in food." He claims that organic foods are more dangerous for human consumption than those treated with chemicals.

Avery is author of Global Food Progress 1991 and Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming, both published by the Hudson Institute. In Saving the Planet, Avery argues that using chemical pesticides, fertilizers and biotechnology is "the solution to environmental problems."  Avery is also the editor of Global Food Quarterly, a publication of the Hudson Institute.

The Hudson Institute has received grants from numerous companies involved in the argi-business sector including Monsanto, Cargill, and CropLife International.

Affiliations  

• The Hudson Institute — Director, Center for Global Food Issues; Senior Fellow. [5]

• The Heartland Institute — Speaker at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change. [6] 

• American Council on Science and Health — Scientific Advisor. [7]

• Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) — CFACT "Advisor," and regular author. [2]

 Publications

• S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, "The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500-Year Climate Cycle," National Center for Policy Analysis, Policy Report No. 279, September 29, 2005.

• Global Food Progress (Hudson Institute, 1991).

• Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Hudson Institute, 1995).

• Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Year. Rowman and Littlefield, 2006 (see on Amazon.com).

• "Global Warming—Boon for Mankind?", The Hudson Institute, April 1, 1998.

• Many of Avery's articles have been published in the CFACT website.

• Dennis T. Avery. "Greenpeace: A Long History of Poor Judgment," The Heartlander, March 1, 2008.

 Resources

1. "Dennis T. Avery," biography at the Center for Global Food Issues.


2. "Diminishing the Noble Peace Prize," CFAC website, Nov 1, 2007.


3. Dennis Avery & Fred Singer. "The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500-Year Climate Cycle," National Center for Policy Analysis, September 30, 2005.


4. "CNN;LOU DOBBS TONIGHT," Transcript. Program originally aired January 13, 2009.


5. "Dennis T. Avery," Biography at the Hudson Institute.


6. "2008 International Conference on Climate Change: Avery, Singer, Armstrong," The Global Warming Challenge, March 6, 2008. 


7. "Scientific Advisors," American Council on Science and Health.


8. "Avery and Singer: Unstoppable hot air," RealClimate.org, November 20, 2006. 


9. "The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500-Year Climate Cycle," National Center for Policy Analysis. Archived, Febuary 14, 2008.



10. "Hudson Institute," SourceWatch profile.

11. "Dennis Avery," Wikipedia.

12. ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Dennis T. Avery

13. "Saving the Planet With Pestilent Statistics," PR Watch, Fourth Quarter 1999, Volume 6, No. 4.

14. "About Dennis Avery," CFACT.

15. Dennis Avery. "Our colossal ignorance on global warming." CFACT, August 9, 2011.

Related DeSmogBlog Posts

• "Parsing Dennis Avery's Other Dubious Claims,"  6, April 2009.
• "Dennis Avery kills climate change AND Maggie Thatcher,"21, July 2008.
• "Research Update #2: International 'Skeptic' Conference on Climate Change," 6 February, 2008.
• "New Scientist slamming the 'skeptic scam'," October 25, 2007.
• "'ZERO Oil Money' Behind Singer/Avery Denier Text: Funding Came From Natural Gas,"  25 September, 2007.
• "Medieval Paintings Explode Global Warming Myth!"  13 September, 2007.
• "Avery's oil friendly and 'intelligently designed' skeptic message," 5 December, 2006.
• "Real Climate blasts Singer and Avery's junk science," 20 November, 2006.
• "Another Zinger from Singer: Can The Movie Be Far Behind?", November 10, 2006.
• "NEWS ALERT: Hudson Institute and Dennis Avery's Scientific Spin on Andes Glacier Study," June 14, 2006.