Dennis Avery

Lucky accident slashes food poisonings

CHURCHVILLE, VA—A new natural food additive, discovered in a laboratory accident, is now ready to slash by half the number of hospitalizations and deaths from food-borne bacterial poisoning across the Western World.

Our Colossal Ignorance on Global Warming

CHURCHVILLE, VA—“It’s not just that man-made emissions don’t control the climate, they don’t even control global CO2 levels.” That’s the incredible message Dr. Murry Salby, Chair of Climate Science at the respected Macquarie University in Australia, presented recently to the Sydney Institute. Professor Salby’s paper, with all the graphs, will be released in about six weeks. His book Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate will be released later this year. Don’t expect an easy read—but if his research holds up, it could well change the direction of the entire climate debate.

Farmer suicides reduced by biotech

CHURCHVILLE, VA—The world’s farm pesticide death toll has been cut radically with biotech seeds that carry their own internal pesticide. A new study in India has found that biotech cotton has reduced pesticide spraying by 50 percent, and spraying of the most toxic poisons by 70 percent. The reduced spraying is helping avoid “several million cases of pesticide poisoning in India every year.”

Making heat waves deadly again

CHURCHVILLE, VA—This last heat wave has been sweltering, but that happens. It was even hotter in 1934, 1911 and other “hot” summers in the past. That’s not extreme weather, it’s “normally abnormal.”

The next climate debate bombshell

Get ready for the next big bombshell in the man-made warming debate. The world’s most sophisticated particle study laboratory—CERN in Geneva—will soon announce that more cosmic rays do, indeed, create more clouds in earth’s atmosphere. More cosmic rays mean a cooler planet. Thus, the solar source of the earth’s long, moderate 1,500-year climate cycle will finally be explained.

More boulders in Africa’s farm path

CHURCHVILLE, VA—The African Biofortified Sorghum project centered in South Africa, is striving to breed sorghum with extra lysine, vitamin A, iron, and zinc to help millions of African small farmers meet their families’ nutritional needs. The project is funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, collaborating with Du Pont and Pioneer Hi-Bred Seeds. Unfortunately, the project has been unable to get South African regulatory approval for its field trials. The test planting will now have to be done in the U.S., though African trials would be a better test.

No mystery to non-recovery

CHURCHVILLE, VA—I’m tired of reading about the American economy’s “mysterious” non-recovery. The lack of recovery isn’t mysterious at all. The economy hates uncertainty, and Obama has introduced more economic uncertainty than we’ve had since Hoover and Roosevelt started violating the law of supply and demand 80 years ago.

Precedent supports climate skeptics

CHURCHVILLE, VA— The skeptics of man-made global warming have now created an important legal precedent for rejecting man-made warming alarmism. Last week the Montana State Supreme Court denied a petition demanding state regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Where’s The “Science Story of the Century?”

CHURCHVILLE, VA—Is it the “Science Story of the Century” or the best kept American media secret of the year? Just-announced heavyweight new studies from the U.S. National Solar Observatory tell us to expect a long quiet period for the sun—and decades of cooler global temperatures. The Register in London headlined, “Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade . . . which could mean that the Earth—far from facing a global warming problem—is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.”

A burning issue: More huge forest fires?

CHURCHVILLE, VA—Our ironic thanks to Smoky the Bear’s campaign manager, the Sierra Club, and all those well-meaning folks who have just delivered the second-largest wildfire in Arizona history. The Wallow Fire has burned more than 600 square miles of Ponderosa pine forest at this writing—and it is still burning. It still has a chance at exceeding the 732 square miles of the Chediski fire in 2002.

When anti-technology kills

CHURCHVILLE, VA—This week’s headlines: Another huge, awful outbreak of food-borne bacteria. This time the worst, so far, in modern history; perhaps 2000 sickened, and about 20 dead. At least 500 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome.. That means liver damage—and potential death from kidney failure. More than 1000 cases of severe diarrhea. Usually it is the very young and the elderly who are most at risk of serious consequences, but this outbreak targeted young adults, mostly women.

Global warming news from the Brits

CHURCHVILLE, VA—My colleague Bennie Peiser, of Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, offers some of his latest man-made global warming news:

Are climate models lying about food too?

Computer models at Stanford University have just “told” us that man-made global warming has already sapped some of the yield potential from our food crops. They say wheat yields would have been 5.5 percent higher since 1980 without the earthly warming; corn yields would have been 3.8 percent higher.

Mississippi flood control is working

Churchville, VA—The anguish in the news media over the opening of the spillways along the Mississippi is a gorgeous example of the journalists’ determination to find sorrow and danger at every turn in our lives. The AP lamented earlier this week that “Over the next few days, water spewing through a Mississippi River floodgate will crawl through the swamps of Louisiana’s Cajun country, chasing people and animals to higher ground while leaving much of the [farm] land under 10 to 20 feet of brown muck.

Maunder Minimum 1740—replay in 2020?

Churchville, VA—A reader recently pointed out a fascinating temperature comparison—between 1700 AD and today. He marked two sections of the world’s oldest temperature record--Central England Yearly Average Temperature 1660–2008: The first section showed our famous recent temperature surge from 1976–1998. He also marked a similar strong temperature surge from AD 1688–1738.

Why the public won’t buy greenhouse limits

Churchville, VA—In the April 21st issue of the far-left New Republic, associate editor Bradford Plumer asked his readers whether the Greens’ climate strategy had been a “total flop.” He said the Greens had helped elect Barack Obama and a filibuster-proof majority in both Houses of Congress, and approved Obama’s Cabinet and “czars.” The President was expected to roll over the climate deniers.

A Double Whammy for Consumers

CHURCHVILLE, VA—U.S. Energy prices have risen to more than 6 percent of consumer spending—which may be a historic “tipping point.” Our food prices, meanwhile, have had their steepest increase in a generation, to about 6.5 percent of spending. That’s a double whammy consumers haven’t suffered since Jimmy Carter’s infamous “stagflation,” a painful mix of weak economic growth, high unemployment, and rising inflation in the late 1970s.

Drought-tolerant Black-eyed peas at center stage

CHURCHVILLE, VA—Extended droughts were far worse in the Little Ice Age that ended just 150 years ago, but big droughts are also likely in the world’s future if we are in a new warming cycle. This prospect pushes the un-exciting Black-Eyed Pea into an unlikely starring role

Real life and antibiotic resistance

CHURCHVILLE, VA—The Wall Street Journal recently made a dreadful error in a news story. That’s “dreadful” as in causing consumers to dread the potential loss of the antibiotics we need to cure pneumonia, tuberculosis, and infected scratches.

Safe Hambuger—at last?

CHURCHVILLE, VA—In the old days, we cooked hamburgers rare, juicy and flavorful. In recent years, because of E. coli 0157:H7, we’ve had to content ourselves with hamburgers that were gray and dry or run the risk of serious illness. 0157:H7 is the relatively new and vicious “Jack-in-the-Box” bacteria that killed four kids in Seattle in 1993. It was seen first by researchers in the 1980s. Since then, it has killed hundreds and sickened thousands more with bloody diarrhea, severe abdominal cramps, and even liver failure.