Early Warming: Crisis and Response in the Climate-Changed North,
Nancy Lord
Introduction
1. What are some of the climate changes that Lord has observed in Alaska?
2. What are the climate impacts on the arctic and how does this affect the
rest of the planet?
3. How have communities pulled together to mitigate some of the climate
change effects?
4. What does Lord say her book is and isn’t about?
5. What are other types of environmental changes not directly related to
climate change?
6. How is the resiliency of the indigenous population highlighted?
7. What are governmental impediments to acting more holistically
concerning climate change?
8. John Holdren says, “We basically have three choices: mitigation,
adaptation, and suffering.” What is he getting at?
9. What are some of the politics around the concept of “adaptation”?
10. What can we learn from early adapters?
Part 1: My Salmon Home: Kenai Peninsula
1. What does the title suggest about Lord’s passion for the wildlife she
researches?
2. How is salmon integral to the Kenai Peninsula?
3. What kinds of water quality issues does the Cook Inlet keeper measure
and track?
4. What do warmer water temperatures means for the salmon and other
marine life dependent on the salmon?
5. What are some of the factors that affect stream temperatures?
6. Why is it important not to attribute every fluctuation in temperature to
climate change? How are scientists careful about the claims they make?
7. Can you describe the relationship between warming streams and
warming air?
8. What recommendations did Sue Mauger make to the Alaska Climate
Impact Assessment Commission?
9. Why was she surprised at the amount of resistance directed at her
research and data?
10. What is the unique history of the Ninilchik peoples?
11. What efforts were put into place to try to restore California’s Sacramento
Chinook run when it collapsed?
12. What does Michael Healy’s research of the effects of climate change on
salmon demonstrate?
13. What management options does Healy suggest, and how might this be a
model for adaptive thinking in related scenarios?
14. Temperature stressed salmon often get diseases, such as Ichthyophonus.
What does this parasite do to the salmon?
15. In additional to global warming, how do lower stream flows, floods,
sedimentation, and changes in the timing of freeze and thaw cycles affect
salmon?
16. What is turbidity and how does sedimentation affect marine life?
17. Turning toward the shade trees necessary for healthy salmon streams,
how do warmer temperatures invite parasitic hosts, such as the spruce
bark beetle?
18. What is the relationship between a changing eco-system and the threat of
invading species?
19. What kind of information can Mauger’s pioneering work provide for
scientists and environmentalists studying climate change?
20. How might this information be used by fisheries managers as one
example?
21. Historically, we know salmon are adaptable, but what is different about
the nature of change in our contemporary moment?
22. What are kettle lakes and why are they useful for measuring climate
change?
23. How are berms or ice-shoved ramparts a useful geological record? How
do they form?
24. What is the concept of backcast and how can it help with future climate
predictions?
25. What is the “stranger story” that Reger and Berg uncover from
radiocarbon dating wood from the berm?
26. Why does Lord take the time to include details about all the wildlife she
observes on site? What effect does this have on you, the reader?
27. At the end of Part One, Lord explains the scientific process and suggest
it’s incompatible with crises. Why?
28. What is significant about the rise in carbon dioxide in the last 800,000
years?
29. How does Berg and Reger’s data help climate modelers?
30. Meteorological records show a 60% decline in available water in the Kenai
lowlands between 1968-2009. What are the reasons?
31. What role do wetlands play in the cycling of carbon dioxide and methane?
32. On the last page of Part One, Lord describes the enormous flock of sand
hill cranes that she observes. Why does she include this detail?
Part Two: Boreal Forest: At the Arctic Circle
1. What is the boreal forest?
2. Why does Lord take the time to describe the adventure she embarks on to
paddle down the Nahanni River to the wild Mackenzie River? What does
this ad to the Early Warming narrative?
3. Lord shares different perspectives of the river, including the experience
paddling on it, locating it as a think line on a map, and observing it from
high above the boreal slopes that flank it. How does each view vary?
What does she include them all?
4. Lord pays attention to the visual elements in her environment, but she’s
also attentive to sound. What are sounds that she pays attention to?
Why?
5. Comment on Lord’s observation of the boreal wilderness: “I thought how
frightening it is that, even in places with so little human occupancy, we
can alter the conditions of life.”
6. What does Lord reveal with her comment, “ . . . the proposed Mackenzie
Gas Project, an eight-hundred-mile-long pipeline designed to carry
natural gas along the river’s same route—only in reverse—from Arctic gas
fields to Alberta, threatened (or promised, depending on one’s point of
view) to open up the country in major new ways.”
7. Explain how the Dene First Nation Peoples fought for a commitment to
“Conservation First” in the development of a gas pipeline and mining.
8. What are some of the difficulties First Nation Peoples face in balancing
strong environmental rights with economic pressures?
9. What role can the boreal forests play in moderating the effects of global
warming?
10. What kinds of arguments are made about the necessity of the boreal forest
in mitigating climate change?
11. Comment on Lord’s observation: “The irony could not be lost on anyone.
On the one hand, a pipeline project that would result in more fossil fuel
burning—especially if, as many suspected, all that natural gas would be
burned to extract oil from tar sands in Alberta—and worsen greenhouse
gas emissions and climate change. On the other, a landscape that holds
carbon in its plants and soil. To save the latter, would we need to suffer
the former?”
12. What are the advantages to using both indigenous and scientific
knowledge in land use planning?
13. What does David Livingstone mean when he says finding a balance
between environmental protection and economic development primarily
concerns “managing human activity.”
14. Lord states, “The world’s economy needs mineral and energy resources,
but the world’s health needs some large places where entire ecosystems
might be left in their wild condition. Is it possible to negotiate changes
with both interests in mind?
15. How is the boreal forest key to the Mountain River and North Territories’
ecological importance?
16. What is deforestation and what are its impacts?
17. Which countries are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world?
18. What are some of the complex factors involved in carbon flux research on
forests?
19. What is the surprising research about old growth forests and their rate of
taking up carbon?
20. How are carbon budget models being used in research? What can they
do?
21. What role does the cold play in carbon release?
22. What is likely to happen if forests continue to warm?
23. What does it mean to move from being a carbon sink to a carbon source?
24. What are some of the forest dynamics that are raising alarms?
25. How are some of these same dynamics impacting permafrost?
26. What has carbon flux research revealed about methane, the gas that forms
from the decomposition of organic matter in the absence of oxygen?
27. We don’t normally think of lakes as being a major source of greenhouse
gas emissions source. But, what is happening with Siberia’s lakes, for
example?
28. What is the purpose of The Boreal Songbird Initiative?
29. What are some results of birds that leave one area and food source and
end up competing with other species for new habitats and food sources?
30. What makes it particularly difficult for conservationists to sell wilderness
values to the general public?
31. Why are northern bird species particularly at risk?
32. What are Audubon recommendations for regarding bird habitats?
33. What is the status of natural gas as compared to oil and coal? How does
that change when it’s being used to produce oil from tar sands?
34. Why do many indigenous leaders see a connection between land
conservation and cultural preservation when leaders in developed
countries tend to downplay that connection?
35. How do many aboriginal people rely on the land for subsistence as well as
spiritual sustenance? Does this change their relationship to the land?
36. What are some of the specific struggles that aboriginal peoples in the
North face?
37. How does the article on “Extreme Warming” and the accompanying map
in the airport lead Lord to contemplate the role of the North in
experiencing climate-related change first?
38. How have top Canadian leaders worked to ensure conservation of some
of Canada’s expansive wilderness areas?
39. What does Lord assert are the three claims to fame of Fort Yukon in
Alaska’s interior?
40. How is Fort Yukon, Alaska, similar to and different from, Fort Good
Hope, Canada?
41. What are some reactions to Doyon, Limited, the Native regional
corporation, intended to develop oil and gas preserves, in exchange for
other Native-owned lands?
42. What are the goals of CATG—the quasi-governmental organization
comprised of ten area villages—with respect to protecting tribal lands
while supporting economic development?
43. What is Lord’s view of such organizations?
44. What are some of the interesting details about gardening in the Arctic
Circle?
45. How is the gardening project one attempt to deal with the “synergistic”
effects of climate change and land use?
46. What are some of the ides behind the biofuel project in Fort Yukon?
47. The wood bison restoration project is another attempt at matching wildlife
to available habitat in the Yukon Flat’s area in the face of a changing
ecosystem. What is the thinking behind this project? What are some of
the impediments to the project?
48. How do oil and gas development threaten wildlife preservation?
49. Why was the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge created in 1980?
50. What are some of the contradictions villagers see in the Doyon native
corporation?
51. Pam Miller, a longtime activist for the protection of arctic lands, states that
“The magnitude of losing the boreal forest is as big as losing the sea ice—
but it’s more subtle.” Why is this a concern?
52. How does Lord describe the conflict between the corporation set up by the
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 and public process?
53. How does Ben Stevens account for why CATG’s work doesn’t consider
climate change issues at present?
54. Respond to the flyer Lord picks up in Fairbanks, put out by the tribal
government of Fort Yukon: “Doyon Land Swap is Bad Business. Why are
we giving up our land so BP, Exxon, or another oil company can get rich
and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can buy our Native lands?”
55. Why does Lord spend a paragraph describing a photo of a dead polar
bear? What effect does the description have on you, the reader?
56. Lord discovers another kind of map at CATG headquarters, one that uses
Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping technology to identify
traditional land use around each of the villages. What kinds of
information does Lord observe from these maps, and why is the
information considered confidential? Why were these maps created in the
first place, and who do they belong to?
57. How does Adlai Alexander, a former village chief, express pride in his
people’s ability to “tolerate whatever Mother Nature dishes out” while
contrasting that skill with newcomers who come to Alaska unprepared
and end up dying because of the elements?
58. How does a fish wheel work?
59. What are some reasons given for low salmon runs in Fort Yukon? How
are the fish noticeably absent from the landscape?
60. Lord claims that “for village Alaska, the “energy crisis,” not climate
change, was the story, and the concern, of the summer.” How does the
economic plight of many native Alaskans impact their day-to-day
decision- making?
61. How do costs of food items in Fort Yukon compare to costs in
Bellingham?
62. Lord writes movingly, “Fort Yukon people still get much of their food
from the river and land, but if the salmon runs continue to decline and the
moose disappear and the fire blackens the berry patches, food security
will indeed be a big issue. One can argue that no one in bush Alaska
needs to eat watermelon imported from California or fresh milk from
Wisconsin cows, but if local foods become harder to find, or require
farther travel to reach, something needs to fill the void.” What kinds of
constraints impact your food purchases and consumption?
63. What does Lord refer to as the “bigger story of change” impacting
traditional communities?
64. How might “place-based design solutions” and bottom-up decisionmaking help communities respond to their needs?
65. Recount Thomas’ story about the native woman who shot the slingshot at
a storm cloud and stopped the rain. How does Lord extend respect to
different cultural perspectives on what might have actually happened in
that moment?
66. How do some native cultures question western scientific “progress,” such
as landing on the moon?
67. How does access to healthy food become a political issue in difficult to
access areas or in communities that are impoverished?
68. One woman tells Lord that the biggest effect of climate change is
depression. Lord writes, “not being able to predict the weather, to know
what was coming and to plan around that, and to face conditions of wind
and snow different from what they’d known all their lives caused people
to be restless and unsure. That change unsettled people in a way that
could cause them to lose heart.” What effect does the weather or not
being able to predict the weather have on you?
69. What are Lord’s thoughts on eco-tourism, or more recently, global
warming tourism, in Alaska? What concerns does she raise? How is
global warming bringing about changes that encourage different forms of
tourism?