Boston University: Global Warming
What Would Thoreau Think? Global Warming at Walden Pond - 04/17/08
Richard Primack, a Boston University College of Arts and Sciences professor of biology, speaks as part of the College of Arts and Sciences Discoveries series.
Using the journals of New England naturalist Henry David Thoreau as a comparative guide, Primack and his students, particularly Abraham Miller-Rushing (GRS'07), have been learning for the past five years how climate change and global warming are influencing the behavior of plants and wildlife in the Boston area.
In the 1850s, Primack says, Thoreau constructed a calendar of nature for Concord, Mass. He recorded the first flowering times of more than 300 plant species and the first spring arrival times of dozens of species of migratory birds.
Through their research, Primack and his students have learned that Walden Pond is thawing earlier than in Thoreau's time, Concord plants are flowering about eight days earlier, and migratory birds are arriving earlier.
"These changes are direct indications that global warming is affecting the natural world, even in New England," Primack says. "And if global warming continues at this rate, it will have severe consequences on American agriculture, forestry, and horticulture.
Primack urges everyone to take action. "Start keeping a calendar of when things flower in your yard and keep track of temperature changes and when birds arrives," he says. "Global warming is a serious subject that must be addressed."
