Champion for change

Longtime UAB Professor Dr. Jim Mcclintock makes climate change his life’s work

Jim McClintock is many things: husband, father, advocate, researcher and now possibly a fiction writer.

He’s also a renowned expert on Antarctica and climate change. He’s published 282 peer reviewed articles, has a play based loosely on his critically-acclaimed book “Lost Antarctica” and has won several awards including the Wright Award, which recognized him as the most outstanding scientist in Alabama.

McClintock, Ph.D., a professor in the UAB Department of Biology since 1987, has committed more than 30 years not just to research but also educating people about climate change with a focus on the Southeast. “The southeastern United States tends to be very conservative,” McClintock said. “Climate change, unfortunately, became very politicized because there are big money interests involved and here in the South, you have that element and you have faith.”

McClintock calls religion a “group dynamic,” connecting people to each other like a family. He says it can be nurturing, speaking from personal experience, but can drive a wedge between people when it comes to climate change.

“If your ‘family’ happens to believe that global warming is a hoax, you’re very unlikely to go to announce to your family that climate change is real and say, ‘We really need to do something about this, guys, because our kids are in trouble,’” McClintock said.

The Earth is a connected system, McClintock said, meaning the melting of ice in Antarctica is related to water flowing into the streets of Miami. McClintock finds that one of the best ways to explain this to people is by bringing it close to home.

“Let’s say you live in rural Alabama,” McClintock said. “I’m going to ask you, ‘Have you noticed that your tomatoes in your garden out back are coming in a lot earlier than they used to?’ I’m going to ask you, ‘Have you noticed that the rains in Alabama are no longer normal rains; they’ve become almost torrents of rain?’ We get the same amount of rain but when it rains it rains harder than it used to and what does it mean for you?”

McClintock also serves on the boards of multiple environmental groups including Forever Wild, the Nature Conservancy and the Cahaba River Society.

“Jim is really helping us understand the bigger drivers in climate change and what those trends are so we can look further forward in improving the programs that we undertake to protect the river and understanding where the future stressors are going to be,” said Beth Stewart, executive director for the Cahaba River Society.

“One of the reasons that we wanted him on our board was so that we could deepen our understanding and improve our communication about climate change’s impacts and its having a tremendous impact on the Cahaba River,” said Stewart.

The Cahaba River, which affects all of the Birmingham area’s drinking water, is affected by urban development. Replacing forests with paved roadways is damaging to the environment - increasing pollution, stormwater runoff, flooding and erosion among other things. McClintock has taught the group how large-scale climate change is affecting the Cahaba River.

“He’s very generous in the attention that he gives to what we’re doing,” said Randy Haddock, former board member of the Cahaba River Society and volunteer. “The guy is a member of the Explorer’s Club, he’s been all over the world but he’s been wonderful about getting to know us and getting to understand our issues and helping us with it.”

McClintock also wants people to remember that climate change isn’t just about the Earth getting hotter but also getting colder. Heatwaves and cold spells have been more intense than they used to be.

“We’ve had droughts in the South where we almost ran out of drinking water for the city of Birmingham,” McClintock said. “People forget we were within weeks of the reservoir drying up.”

The Southeast is viewed as a challenge to many climate scientists in the country and was noticed by McClintock when asked to do a lecture in Washington, D.C. Fellow environmentalist Katherine Hayhoe, a renowned climate scientist based in Texas, and McClintock were asked to give a lecture about what they were doing in their states to educate people about climate change.

McClintock feels Alabama is where he needs to be to teach people about climate change - unlike states like California where he would be “preaching to the choir” - but that’s not the only reason that he’s lived in Alabama for so many years. He came here 35 years ago and was completely surprised by the “natural beauty” of Alabama.

“Of all the places in our country that we need to protect from climate change, Alabama should be at the very top of that list,” McClintock said. “People need to realize what a treasure we have here.”

He fell in love with the mountains, trees and plants but that wasn’t all. He was fascinated by the “unparalleled” biodiversity that the state has.

“Did you know we have 38 species of oak trees in Alabama — back in California we only have three or four,” McClintock said. “We have 150 species of fish in the Cahaba River. Alabama is at the epicenter of diversity. Life evolved in Alabama unlike other places in the country.”

McClintock is also thinking of ideas for his third book which he’s thinking might be a fiction novel, something he’s never tackled before. Trade books, another name for nonfiction, can reach a large audience but fiction has a history of drawing in more readers.

“Ultimately my goal with writing books is to educate the broader public about climate change and how it’s impacting people around the world, not just Antarctica and the marine life there but how that’s influencing even here in Alabama,” McClintock said. “I’m thinking of ways to combine the excitement and allure of Antarctica with climate change, romance, adventure and intertwine all of that into a novel.”

Forty years before falling in love with climate science, he was an English major at the University of Santa Cruz. McClintock grew up on the coast of California and became fond of the ocean. When he took a college course taught by a marine biologist, he had found his passion.

After all those years and two books later, he’s found his way back to creative writing. But even though he’s written two books, he admits that it’s a challenge given the fact that he’s never had to bring emotion and danger to the page before. He’s been getting tips on creative writing from his friend and colleague Adam Vines, a poet and English professor at UAB.

“Adam has gone out of his way to help me become a writer because it’s true, I am trained in how to write really dry sentences,” McClintock said. “If you pick up one of my books - “Naturalist Goes Fishing or Lost Antarctica” - there are elements of how things smell and taste and feel but Adam is teaching me how to write backstories and how you don’t have to have a linear timeline.”

Many people ask McClintock what they can do and they never expect his answer. People should insulate their houses and drive hybrid cars but the most important thing anyone can do is vote.

“When you vote for someone, you’re supporting their view of this issue,” McClintock said. “Vote for people who care about the environment, who care to address climate change because those are the people that can make a difference.”