All Our Yesterdays

In 1980 a book called The Greenhouse Effect was published. Its author, Buzz Bernard, kindly agreed to an email interview…

A bit about where you were born, grew up, were educated

I was born in Eugene, Oregon; grew up in Portland, Oregon; and was educated at the University of Washington (Seattle)

What drew you to the Air Force? What did you do in your service?

The draft was still in effect when I entered college. My dad said, “You’re gonna have to serve in the military, so you might as well do it as an officer.” Thus, I joined the AF ROTC and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. I was hoping the AF might send me on to get a Master’s Degree in Atmospheric Science, but something called Vietnam came along. So much for furthering my education.

In the air force I mainly supported flying/combat operations. I ended my career (primarily in the reserve) as Deputy Director of Weather (Reserve), Air Combat Command.

When and how did your involvement in meteorology come about?

I always (at least since I was about 8 or 9 years old) knew I wanted to be a “weatherman.” I wanted to know what made it cold or hot, why sometimes we got snowstorms instead of rainstorms, what caused big windstorms, etc. There wasn’t any one big event that triggered my curiosity (like with many of my fellow meteorologists), I was just interested in weather.

When and how did you first hear about carbon dioxide build-up as a potential problem? 

I first heard about atmospheric carbon dioxide when I went on a research project sponsored by the Univ of Washington in the Alaskan arctic in the summer of 1962. My job was to drive an old WWII weapons carrier out to a hut at the literal  end of Point Barrow and record CO2 measurements. “Man, is this boring,” I thought. 

In the late 1970s, I became friends with an MIT professor emeritus who worked at the research firm I was working at (as a civilian) in Massachusetts. He’d been involved in linking sunspot cycles to climate cycles. I found that fascinating and wrote a trade book (WEATHER WATCH) about it. I asked the professor about the threat of warming from increasing CO₂ in the atmosphere. He brushed it off saying, “Don’t worry about it.” Well, I wasn’t worried about it, but wanted to find out more. So I began reading everything I could find about the subject, and drew my own conclusions as a layman. I decided that there was a real threat from anthropogenic warming caused by CO₂. Not immediately, but maybe by the turn of the century. Thus came the book THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT, which was what global warming or climate change was called back then.

I grew even more convinced of the threat of man-caused global warming through the 1980s and ended up writing another trade book about it that came out in 1993, GLOBAL WARMING UNCHECKED. By then, the threat of anthropogenic global warming was becoming more public, controversial, and politicized. Even many (most?) operational meteorologists (forecasters) didn’t believe in it, or maybe just wanted to ignore it. I was told by one forecaster who owned a big commercial firm that I was a charlatan. (I don’t think he had a clue how little money most authors really make.) When I joined a commercial forecasting operation a few years later, I was told by a friend to keep my mouth shut about having written books that dealt with global warming. No one at the company believed in it. Of course, the company has done a one-eighty since then and now can’t talk about it enough.

The book itself, how did it come about—were you commissioned or did you pitch it?

I was not commissioned. I wanted to write the book because I believed the threat of global warming was real. I had an agent by then because of WEATHER WATCH, and the agent was able to get a contract for the book with a subsidiary of a major publisher.

Anything you recall about the writing process—easy, hard, quicker or longer than expected, surprises on the way? (this is all fifty years ago, I know!)

Looking back, it was hard. There were no word processors then. I used a typewriter. Cut and paste was literal. Q&A with researchers was via snail mail not email. What little research I did was done in libraries, not on the internet. I hated doing the indexes at the end of books. I think that’s one reason I ultimately turned to writing fiction.

Were you happy with it?

Yes. Of course, I think any time you complete a book, you’re happy with it. In truth, I don’t think many of my friends had any idea what I was writing about. One of my bosses asked me, in all seriousness, “Do you have a greenhouse at your home?”He obviously hadn’t read the book yet.

How was the book received?

It wasn’t any big deal. I was not an author (or researcher) that anybody knew. There was no Amazon back then where you could track book sales or read reviews by customers.

Any further work you did on the Greenhouse Effect/thoughts on where we are now at?

As I mentioned earlier, I did write a follow-up book called GLOBAL WARMING UNCHECKED. From here on out, however, I’ll let the climate change experts/researchers write about the subject. I still follow global warming/climate change, and science has proven the early warnings were correct. People still occasionally ask me if I “believe” in global warming, as if the science were unsettled. I respond, “Do you believe in sunrise and sunset?”

Thoughts? Major challenges still remain in front of us. Heat waves, droughts, major floods, superstorms.

Me? I’m just gonna kick back and enjoy writing my WWII historical fiction series. I still have to do a lot of research, but it’s a lot more fun, I get more “attaboys,” and earn more money.

Which of your WW2 books should people start with and why?

It really doesn’t matter. They are all standalone novels, although WHEN HEROES FLEW: ROOF OF THE WORLD and WHEN HEROES FLEW: WHERE THE DAWN COMES UP LIKE THUNDER are connected. Readers in the UK might want to start with WHEN HEROES FLEW: BLACK THURSDAY or FIVE DAYS IN JUNE (which comes out in October), since both are set largely in and around London.

Which of them are you proudest of and why?

I would say the first novel of the series which was titled simply WHEN HEROES FLEW. I wasn’t thinking of a series then. But the novel sold well, got great reviews, and eventually drew some interest from a screenwriter, so I was off and running.

Anything else you’d like to say?

Thanks for this opportunity to help me recall how I got started in this crazy business of commercial writing. When I was younger, I was a meteorologist who wrote a few books. Now I’m a novelist who retains a keen interest in meteorology and climate change, but those subjects are no longer my profession They are hobbies. I think I have a wonderful life.