Earth Day Network is joining with playwright Michael Johnathon in exploring the vital role we each play in protecting the Earth by living more simply and preserving natural environments in our home communities. Walden: The Ballad of Thoreau will stream online via EarthDayTV.net and be broadcast over public TV and radio and in theaters on Earth Day, April 22. To date, 7,200 schools and community theatres have performed the play in 35 countries, bringing to life the lessons of Henry David Thoreau, father of the environmental movement in America.

Thoreau’s records of Walden’s plant species from 1851 to 1858 provide a baseline for today’s naturalists. They report that 27 percent of this Concord, Massachusetts pond’s flowers have vanished. Another 36 percent are on the brink. Boston University scientists report that the average annual temperature there is now 4.3 degrees higher, due in part to surrounding asphalt and buildings, causing species that can’t adapt to earlier bloom times to die out because spring pollinators are arriving earlier, as well. Climate change is throwing off the synchronicity of nature.

Evolutionary biologist Charles Davis notes that “Major branches in the tree of life are being lost, groups that we all know and love: dogwoods, orchids and members of the lily and rose families.”

For more information visit WaldenPlay.com.