Dennis Avery (1936 – 2020)
Dennis Avery was a senior fellow with The Heartland Institute, director of the Center for Global Food Issues, and a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute. With Dr. S. Fred Singer, he was coauthor of Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1,500 Years, which spent weeks on The New York Times best-seller list in early 2007.
Avery was the author of Global Food Progress 1991 (Hudson Institute, 1991) and Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Hudson Institute, 1995). The second edition of Saving the Planet was published in 2000.
Avery wrote a weekly column on environmental issues that was widely regarded across the country and internationally. He was quoted in publications ranging from Time and The Washington Post to The Farm Journal. Avery’s article, “What’s Wrong with Global Warming?” was published in the August 1999 issue of Reader’s Digest.
Avery studied agricultural economics at Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin. He held awards for outstanding performance from three different government agencies and was awarded the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement in 1983. He monitored developments in world food production, farm product demand, the safety and security of food supplies, and the sustainability of world agriculture. As a staff member of the President’s National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber, he wrote the Commission’s landmark report, “Food and Fiber for the Future.”
Avery traveled the world as a speaker, has testified before Congress, and appeared on most of the nation’s major television networks, including ABC’s 20/20.
Joseph Bast, former president of The Heartland Institute who worked with Avery for years, wrote this tribute to his friend:
The world became a less interesting place on June 20, 2010 with the passing of Dennis Avery, a gifted scholar and communicator best known for his work on agriculture, energy policy, and climate change. He was 83.
Dennis was probably best known for two provocative books. The first, titled Saving the World with Pesticides and Plastic (Hudson Institute 1995, second edition 2000) debunked dozens of liberal shibboleths about agriculture, food safety, and public health. The book anticipated and helped spark the rise of a generation of researchers and writers willing to challenge the faulty science and economics behind many popular but misguided environmental protection campaigns. The second book, Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1,500 Years (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, second edition 2008), coauthored with S. Fred Singer, quickly became the Bible of the fast-growing “global warming skeptics” movement.
In an age when angry exchanges between partisans get much more attention than scholarship and debate, Dennis Avery maintained a dignified but not silent presence, a true “gentleman and scholar” willing to calmly and patiently explain complex issues even as others try to shout down opposing views. He was a frequent speaker at the climate change conferences hosted by The Heartland Institute (available on YouTube), contributed to the Climate Change Reconsidered series produced by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), and traveled to Katowice, Poland to join other scholars in presenting contrary opinions on climate change at the United Nations’ 24th Conference of the Parties (COP-24).
Dennis was a much admired and beloved by his countless colleagues and friends around the world. He will be sorely missed.
Avery presented several times at Heartland’s many International Conferences on Climate Change, which you can see below.
Avery also accompanied The Heartland Institute’s trip to Poland in December 2018 to provide a “counter conference” to the alarmist program at the United Nation’s COP-24. Watch his presentation below.
Dennis Avery (1936 – 2020) Contributions
- Climate Change
- Environment & Energy