In the Author Spotlight ...

John Slade, Author of
Climate Change and the Oceans

Professor and author John Slade is out to change the world. In his new book, Climate Change and the Oceans, John hopes to raise the global awareness of climate change, not just in the United States, but around the world.

A graduate of Stanford University with a BA, MA, and PhD in comparative literature, John Slade began his life as an educator, teaching English in the United States, the Caribbean, Norway, and Russia. These experiences and locations became the inspiration for his plethora of novels. "My books are mostly fiction with whatever the subject matter is woven in," John explains. "My books are basically a story set in some interesting place that goes deep into the culture and the nature, but there is always some major theme woven through - Veterans coming home from the war in Iraq, wind turbines and clean energy, global warming, climate change and the ocean. That’s my main pattern."

For example, an experience on St. Croix in the Caribbean led to John's fascination with nuclear weapons and their effects on our world. "I was a teacher on the island of St Croix in the Caribbean, snorkeling with the kids and taking in the local music, totally immersed in the culture," he says." In the summer of 1981, an American destroyer on maneuvers in the Caribbean actually fired a missile by accident on a Tuesday afternoon toward the island of St. Croix. It did not hit the island because the ship was about 30 miles off shore and it was a horizontal firing. It hit the water between the ship and the island.  And I thought 'Holy Hell'." After that incident, John spent 8 years (1981 – 1990) studying nuclear weapons, including a visit to an international conference in Stockholm, Sweden with the top nuclear experts of the world for a week. "I spent breakfast, lunch and dinner there, staying at the hotel at the conference. These experts confirmed everything in the book I had written and that all the research was absolutely accurate. That is the incredible book Children of the Sun."

After teaching on St. Croix, John continued his international journey, settling in Norway for 10 years. "Norway was the big door opener. The Norwegians are extremely ecological - I would say they are 30 years ahead of the United States. In fact, our children are a generation or two behind the children of Norway when it comes to ecology and climate protection," John says. "We’re so far behind. That really opened my eyes. In Norway, ecology was always a part of the program."

While in Norway, John helped to develop an exchange program with a university in St. Petersburg, Russia. His unique five year experience as a teacher in St. Petersburg prepared him to write The New St. Petersburg, a non-fiction work documenting the lives of people trying to rebuild after the collapse of Soviet Russia. Experiences such as this have provided him access to locations from the exotic to the oppressed, and allowed him to embrace the cultures and issues prominent in his books. "I was in the very first group of teachers from Norway to build a relationship with Russia," he explains. "So I’ve written a lot about Russia.  But – I became an ecologist by living in Norway, a country that was just way out there, way ahead of us."

In his new book, Climate Change and the Oceans, John tells seven stories, set in seven locations around the world, today, and twenty years from now. "The first three stories take place in America because we have to wake up the American readers, so we visit a farm in Illinois, a beach in Florida, and downtown Manhattan in New York City," says John. "We then visit four more places – The Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean, which are only about five feet above sea level on average; Antarctica; the sea off the coast of Norway; and finally the tundra that wraps around the northern world. We visit those seven locations today, and in 20 years, the near future. In 2030, we visit each of those locations in a pair of stories, one optimistic and one pesimistic. In the final chapter, we come back to the big “uh-oh” in New York City in 2030. I won’t ruin the ending, but it’s a punch into mid-Manhattan and America is going to feel it."

John currently resides at a family cabin on a lake in the Adirondack Park of northern New York. A snorkeler and naturalist from an early age, he has watched the lake slowly die from acid rain. He continues to write and hopes to continue educating people on climate changes and ways we can reduce its impact on our lives, on our environment and on future generations.

To purchase your copy of Climate Change and the Oceans, visit
http://www.atlasbooks.com/woodgateintl/climatechange.htm

Visit WoodGate International to learn more about books by John Slade

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