Seacoast Chapter Program

Wednesday, April 13

Henry David Thoreau was a climate change scientist! For the past 18 years, presenter Professor Richard Primack and his team have been using Thoreau’s records from the 1850s and other Massachusetts data sources to document the earlier flowering and leafing out times of plants, the earlier flight times of butterflies and the more variable response of migratory birds. Plants in Concord are also changing in abundance due to a warming climate. This work is now being extended to the neglected autumn season. What would Thoreau tell us to do about global warming if he were alive today?

Bio: Richard Primack is a Professor at Boston University with a specialization in plant ecology and conservation. He has written four widely used conservation biology textbooks; local co-authors helped to produce 38 translations with local examples. He was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biological Conservation and served as President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation. His research has been featured in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and Nation Geographic, and he is often interviewed on National Public Radio. Primack shares his research in the popular book Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods.

Visit the Seacoast Chapter website for further details and to register for the free zoom talk.