THOREAU’S SEACH FOR PLACE:
From New York City (1843) to Walden Pond
Paul H. Carr
www.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 feet
13

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

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
15

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 Recession
By 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.