Born in the UK, Tom was at school during the 1960s youth revolution. Like many others, he was inspired by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to join the then new environmental movement. He has been involved in campaigning for environmental protection ever since and for climate action since 1988. As chair of the British Association of Nature Conservationists, he helped organise the first international conference on the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. He has a degree in engineering, an MBA, an MSc in environmental technology from Imperial College, is a Chartered Environmentalist and registered greenhouse gas and energy auditor.
Since 1990 he has been a consultant in environment, sustainability and climate change, advising governments, many companies and other organisations on many issues. At last count he had worked in 28 countries.
Tom has many interests. His father’s front line World War Two experience, as well as his travels, led to an interest in modern history. The turbulent 60s and 70s, and being an exchange student in the US during Watergate, led to an interest in politics; his travels, studies and work to an interest in human behaviour.
His special loves stem from his childhood in the 1950s. As the Jesuites say ‘give me the boy and I’ll give you the man’. His much older brother John introduced him to early rock n’ roll even before the amazing music explosion of the 1960s reinforced his love. His father slipped some beer into his lemonade and he became a lifelong craft beer tragic (now without the lemonade). Growing up in Swindon, once a great railway town, and seeing express trains screaming through like fiery dragons, in the last days of steam, turned him into an incurable trainspotter.
John’s LP of Walt Disney’s Fantasia introduced him to classical music. Tom joined a local choir and has been a choral singer ever since. Including, during 1982-2000, over 200 performances with the London Philharmonic, London Symphony and other orchestras under many of the world’s greatest conductors. John’s recordings of the Goon shows triggered a lifetime love of comedy.
Since 1999 he has lived in Western Australia where he settled and raised a family. He has travelled and worked throughout Australia, appreciating its beauty and diversity. Among the campaigns he has been involved in have been ending logging the ancient forests of the south west and ending whaling in the Antarctic. He has observed Australian climate politics with a mix of amusement and horror. You couldn’t make it up. This and the world’s crisis situation moved him to write this book to help relieve the anxiety a bit while conveying the need for change in an entertaining way.
This is his first solo novel. His first, The Seventh Boat, was co-authored with David Ashbridge, is about whaling in the Southern Ocean and is an Amazon ebook.
The Fossilarchy, Tom’s latest book, is an action-packed political thriller about the power of the ogliarchy and climate change.
You can read more about Tom and his book on his website: https://tomsclarkauthor.com
