Posted on April 22, 2022 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

It's an unfortunate truth that often the arts are not seen as valuable as STEM subjects.

But here's a great counterpoint to that perception: writer Henry David Thoreau's journals have served as a resource for climate scientists.

In 2016, a team of scientists from Boston University decided to examine the Walden Pond author's notebooks to compare his commentary on when flowers bloomed, trees began to show buds and leaves, and when birds returned after winter.

They compared it to modern observations and found that nowadays, trees were beginning to sprout leaves about eighteen days earlier than what Thoreau noted about Concord, Massachusetts, in 1845.

JSTOR has a summary of the study along with a link to it.

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Categories: Today in Books

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