About... 

Naomi Klouda's blog is a digital platform dedicated to sharing stories that resonate with readers across the globe. Much of the content centers on a changing climate and how we can do our part to bear witness as well as alter our habits. 

Here's a challenge: If 2 million people pledged not to drive one day per week, it would indeed make a noticeable difference. For example, if each person avoided driving 20 miles on that day, it could save approximately 40 million miles of driving per week. This reduction could lead to a significant decrease in carbon emissions over the course of a year.

One of my new favorite sayings is this, by Julia Rosen, science writer.

“The future remains inscrutable and largely unwritten.

But if love is paying attention,

then our job is to keep watch. Even when it breaks our hearts.”

Other than this ability to pay attention, I have no special qualifications. I am a grandmother, a retired journalist and writer living in Homer, Alaska. In 2024, I published "Anna's Whale," a novella about climate change in a fictional Alaska village where a rare North Pacific Right Whale washes up on the beach. Check out an excerpt on these pages. The web of climate change carries many strands as you'll see it played out in "Anna's Whale." 

For years, I've researched glaciers to write the "Alaska Glacier Dictionary: Let Me Tell You a Glacier's Name." The compendium of glaciers is due out in 2025. My concern there came as a journalist when I needed more information about a given glacier. I found the information scattered, difficult to access and often out of date. I realized a need for the first ever Alaska Glacier Dictionary as a written book hikers could take along, tourists and armchair Alaskans of all stripes. 

My concern is a lengthy prayer list: the natural environment figures prominently, but also the peopled places, the age of tragic wars across Earth at the moment and the rise of AI. 

I can't help much in those areas of the world, but I see climate change as exacerbating the problems created by war as people flee their regions of the world for more peaceful, habitable ones. 

I don't know how it adds up to care on my end in Alaska - where we have over 100,000 glaciers - but I'm hoping it does balance the world somehow.  This is the only planet we've got and it's breaking our hearts to watch the chaos, whether it's a manmade or natural disaster. It's cracking the world open at this moment when we try to breathe, to think, to move, to walk, to raise children. 

The blog also includes articles I wrote in the past from my nearly 30 years as a newspaper reporter in Alaska. 

I hope you enjoy reading this blog and feel inspired to make changes in your own life where the climate can benefit. 

Feel free to write to me at naomiklouda@gmail.com if you have a concern you'd like to share.

 

To access my book, go to: 

Anna's Whale - Todd Communications Catalogue (alaskabooksandcalendars.com) or at Amazon.com: Anna's Whale: When a Pacific Right Whale Stranded at Sunavik eBook : Klouda , Naomi: Kindle Store