Early Warming Crisis and Response in the Climate-Changed North

In Shishmaref, Alaska, new seawalls are constructed while residents navigate the many practical and bureaucratic obstacles to moving their entire island village to higher ground. Farther south, inland hunters and fishermen set out to grow more of their own food—and to support the reintroduction of wood bison, an ancient species well suited to expected habitat changes. First Nations people in Canada team with conservationists to protect land for both local use and environmental resilience. In Early Warming, Alaskan Writer Laureate, Nancy Lord, takes a cutting-edge look at how communities in the North—where global warming is amplified and climate-change effects are most immediate—are responding with desperation and creativity. This beautifully written and measured narrative takes us deep into regions where the indigenous people who face life-threatening change also demonstrate impressive conservation ethics and adaptive capacities. Underpinned by a long acquaintance with the North and backed with scientific and political sophistication, Lord’s vivid account brings the challenges ahead for us all into ice-water clarity.

Nancy Lord lives in Homer, Alaska. From her many years of commercial salmon fishing and, later, work as a naturalist and historian on adventure cruise ships, she’s explored in both fiction and nonfiction the myths and realities of life in the north.

Among her published books are three collections of short stories and five works of literary nonfiction, including the memoir Fishcamp, the cautionary Beluga Days, and the front-lines story of climate change, Early Warming. Lord was honored as Alaska Writer Laureate for 2008-10, a term during which she traveled throughout the state to promote Alaska writers, writing, and libraries.