Meeting Abstract

P2.60  Sunday, Jan. 5 15:30  Taking your research to the public: leveraging a popular book to educate millions of people about climate change and ocean acidification MCCLINTOCK, JB; Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham mcclinto@uab.edu

Authoring a popular book with an important environmental narrative can synergize opportunities to educate the general public that greatly exceed direct readership. In this presentation, I describe how a friendship with Edward O. Wilson encouraged me to author a book about my research and adventures in Antarctica set against a narrative of the ecological impacts of rapid climate change. To maximize the book’s educational outreach, I recruited internationally renowned authors, entrepreneurs, and scientists to contribute book jacket blurbs. This, in turn, facilitated interviews on NPR including the “Diane Rehm Show” and “On Point with Tom Ashbrook”, along with book promotion tweets by Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Sylvia Earle. Media attention surrounding the book spawned book reviews in magazines including Smithsonian and Nature, and newspaper articles on climate change and ocean acidification. Invitations followed to write Op Ed pieces for the Birmingham News and the Huffington Post. An appointment to the Advisory Board of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation resulted in the production of a video narrated by Harrison Ford based on a chapter of the book that describes the dramatic decline in Adelie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula (the video is being featured in aquariums and zoos across America). In summary, while sales of the book are likely to number in the tens of thousands, in the larger picture the book has facilitated the education of several million Americans on the pressing issues of climate change and ocean acidification. Supported by an Endowed University Professorship to J.B.M.