climatewatch

Teaming up with Thoreau

Citation:
Nijhuis, M. Teaming up with Thoreau. Smithsonian magazine, October 2007. Available from: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/walden.html?c=y&page=1 [accessed 11 November 2008].

Summary:
The upright citizens of Concord, Massachusetts, didn't think much of young Henry David Thoreau. The cabin on Walden Pond, the night in jail for tax evasion, the constant scribbling in journals—it all seemed like a waste of a perfectly good Harvard education. Even more mysterious was his passion for flowers. "I soon found myself observing when plants first blossomed and leafed," Thoreau confided to his journal in 1856, "and I followed it up early and late, far and near, several years in succession, running to different sides of the town and into the neighboring towns, often between twenty and thirty miles in a day." …

This article discusses the records kept by the naturalist Henry David Thoreau in the 1800’s, and the other records that scientists are comparing to present-day records to monitor the effect of global warming on plant species.

This article appeared in the Smithsonian magazine, October 2007. The full article can be viewed online at: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/