Thoreau’s Notes Help Track Climate Change At Walden Pond
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MAY 10, 1853, was a warm day outside Concord, Massachusetts—an early spring day when a New Englander outdoors would “begin to think of thin coats,” noted Henry David Thoreau. Walking from Concord towards Saw Mill Brook, Thoreau jotted down what he saw. …
Today, nearly 160 years later, Thoreau’s detailed observations form the basis of a long-term study of how climate change is altering the timing of seasonal biological events—or phenology—and how such shifts may in turn impact the wildlife and wild places of an entire region. …
Walden Warming - National Wildlife Magazine
Raises the question: Today, bloggers write and write and write, have all sorts of opinions, and write and… but do we know how to observe? And how useful will our output be in the long run? HDT wrote in little notebooks, and we’ve been reading him for a century and a half. Perhaps it pays to consider quality, not just quantity.
One Comment
Steve Willson
October 2nd, 2007
at 7:00am
May 10 is “early spring”? How stupid is this? News flash: 1853 was just at the end of the Little Ice Age - if it wasn’t significantly cooler back then I’d be stunned.
Well, Spring begins on March 22, usually, and most folks who have lived in Massachusetts would consider early May to be “early” Spring — especially during the “little ice age.”
Frankly, I’m a bit unclear about your reaction — although reaction is certainly the word. Do you disagree with the record Thoreau left? Does anything in his quote indicate variance with your remark about the little ice age (which I’ll take at face value, since it’s pretty much a non sequiter anyway). Do you just not like Thoreau’s writing? Are you just disagreeable in general? What’s this all about, anyway? Gotta be more than just terminology.