THOREAU’S SEACH FOR PLACE:

From New York City (1843) to Walden Pond

Paul H. Carrwww.MirrorOfNature.org

I.THOREAU’S SEACH FOR PLACE:

From New York City (1843) to Walden Pond

II. PRESERVING THOREAU’S & OUR PLACE FROM CLIMATE CHANGE

In the spring of 1843, Henry David Thoreau, 26 years old, set off for New York City to seek his place in the

city’s sparkling literary scene.

Ralph Waldo Emerson had made arrangements for Henry to live with Waldo’s brother Judge William Emerson on Staten Island to tutor son Willie.

Ralph Waldo Emerson with Brother William

From Staten Island’s natural beauty, Henry made frequent trips to Manhattan to advance his ambition of becoming a great writer.

Map of blue ferry route from Staten island to Manhattan

Thoreau met such literary figures as poet Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Henry James (father of the novelist).

Poet Walt Whitman

Thoreau met editor of the Tribune Horace Greeley

Unfortunately Henry’s nature writing was not well received in the city dedicated to money and power: He wrote to Emerson, “Literature comes to a poor market here, and even the little that I write is more than will sell.” Henry, searching for his individuality in the crowds among the city’s affluence and squalor wrote:

“The pigs in the street are the most respectable part of the population. When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?”

Discouraged in December 1843, Thoreau returned home to Concord, where he determined to “be humbly who you are.”

In 1845, Henry found his place and voice in the cabin he built on Walden Pond, where he completed A Week…, his first drafts of Walden, and Civil Disobedience.

Henry’s sojourn in New York provided an experience of the most hectic and temporal of cities that gave a strong impetus to his lifelong project: cultivating the garden amid the machines.

II.PRESERVING THOREAU’S & OUR PLACE FROM RISING SEA LEVELS

Most recent prediction for 2100: 2 to 6 feet13

14Sea levels rising 2-4 feet by 2100 will flood Boston, Harvard U.

15

The rate of sea level increase correlates with the blue line of CO2 increase.

Sea level rise is a proxy for global temperature, due to thermal expansion (50%) & the melting of ice (50%)

Sea level rise rate has increased 4 times: 3.1 mm/year ( 1 ft/100 yr. ) now from 0.8 mm/year in 1900

Prophetic Pope Francis:

• Stop plundering our planet for profit, the poor suffering the most.

200 Page Encyclical Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home. June 2015

Prophetic Pope Francis:• “The economic and social costs of using up shared

environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them.”

• Carbon dioxide polluters should pay, including us.

200 Page Encyclical Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home. June 2015

SOLUTIONS TO GOBAL WARMING

Electric Cars powered by non carbon emitting:

• Windmills• Solar Cells• Nuclear Fission Power Plants

Electric cars getting the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon are now available.

The Coming Climate Crash:Lessons for Climate Change in the 2008 RecessionBy HENRY M. PAULSON Jr. Secretary of the Treasury under Pres. George W. Bush.Co-Author of www.RiskyBusiness.org JUNE 21, 2014http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/opinion/sunday/lessons-for-climate-change-in-the-2008-recession.html

“We’re staring down a climate bubble that poses enormous risks to both our environment and economy. The warning signs are clear and growing more urgent as the risks go unchecked.

A tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy and create jobs as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure.

Climate change is the challenge of our time. We’ve seen and felt the costs of underestimating the financial bubble. Let’s not ignore the climate bubble.”

I.THOREAU’S SEACH FOR PLACE:

From New York City (1843) to Walden Pond

II. PRESERVING THOREAU’S & OUR PLANET from CLIMATE CHANGE.