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Global Warming Changes Thoreau's Walden

27% of species have disappeared from Mass. pond author made famous

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 28, 2008 3:33 PM CDT

(Newser) – While living at Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau collected detailed data on the plant species native to Concord, Mass. Scientists studying climate change have compared those records to present-day biodiversity—and found chilling evidence of global warming’s effects, the Boston Globe reports. 27% of the species Thoreau documented are gone, and another 36% have been diminished to the brink of extinction.

Concord remains largely undeveloped since Thoreau’s time, but ambient temperatures have risen 4 degrees. Because that makes pollinating insects arrive earlier, species that reacted to the rising temperatures by flowering a week before the dates Thoreau recorded have survived, while those that didn’t have largely died off. “Climate change is throwing off the synchronicity of nature,” remarked one scientist.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (1)]

A boy walks around a replica of Henry David Thoreau's one-room cabin at Walden Pond in Concord, Mass. in this June 20, 2003 file photo. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

A woman in a bathing suit walks along a trail at Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., June 28, 2007. (AP Photo)

Ducks walk around near shore where bathers enjoy the sun at Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., June 28, 2007. (AP Photo)

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Thoreau was the earliest person to keep detailed records of when plants flowered in the US. If you came out here looking for the flowers Thoreau saw, you wouldn't find many of them. It's a sad message.
- Charles Davis, plant biologist

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Global Warming Changes Thoreau's Walden