Elizabeth Kolbert (born 1961) is an American journalist, author, and visiting fellow at
Williams College
Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...
. She is best known for her
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning book ''
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History'', and as an observer and commentator on the
environment
Environment most often refers to:
__NOTOC__
* Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally
* Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' magazine.
The Sixth Extinction was
a ''New York Times'' bestseller and won the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
’'' book prize for science and technology. Her book ''
Under a White Sky
''Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future'' is a 2021 environmental book by Elizabeth Kolbert. The book follows many of the themes she explored in ''The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.''
Summary
''Under a White Sky'' is focused on ...
'' was one of the ''
Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
’s'' ten best books of the 2021. Kolbert is a two-time National Magazine Award winner, and was awarded the BBVA Biophilia Award for Environmental Communication in 2022. Her work has appeared in ''
The Best American Science and Nature Writing
''The Best American Science and Nature Writing'' is a yearly anthology of popular science magazine articles published in the United States. It was started in 2000 and is part of ''The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin. Articles ...
'' and ''
The Best American Essays ''The Best American Essays'' is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States.Robert Atwan (ed.), Adam Gopnick (guest ed.). ''The Best American Essays 2008'', Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. It was started in 1986 and is ...
''.
Kolbert served as a member of the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' is a nonprofit organization concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity. The ''Bulletin'' publishes conte ...
' Science and Security Board from 2017 to 2020.
Early life
Kolbert spent her early childhood in
the Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
; her family then relocated to
Larchmont
Larchmont is a village located within the Town of Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York, approximately northeast of Midtown Manhattan. The population of the village was 5,864 at the 2010 census. In February 2019, Bloomberg ranked Lar ...
, where she remained until 1979.
After graduating from
Mamaroneck High School
Mamaroneck High School is a public school located in Mamaroneck, New York. The school is part of the Mamaroneck Union Free School District. Students residing in neighboring Larchmont also attend this school.
Ranking
Mamaroneck High school is unra ...
, Kolbert spent four years studying literature at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
. In 1983, she was awarded a
Fulbright Scholarship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
to study at
Universität Hamburg
The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vor ...
, in Germany.
Career
Elizabeth Kolbert started working for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' as a
stringer
Stringer may refer to:
Structural elements
* Stringer (aircraft), or longeron, a strip of wood or metal to which the skin of an aircraft is fastened
* Stringer (slag), an inclusion, possibly leading to a defect, in cast metal
* Stringer (stairs), ...
in Germany in 1983. In 1985 she went to work for the Metro desk. Kolbert served as the Times' Albany bureau chief from 1988 to 1991 and wrote the Metro Matters column from 1997 to 1998.
Since 1999, she has been a staff writer for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''.
She was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for ''The Sixth Extinction'' in 2015.
Personal life
Kolbert resides in
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in the northern part of Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolit ...
, with her husband, John Kleiner, and three sons.
Recognition
* 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award
* 2006 National Magazine Award for Public Interest
* 2006 Lannan Literary Fellowship
* 2006 National Academies Communication Award
* 16th Annual
Heinz Award
The Heinz Awards are individual achievement honors given annually by the Heinz Family Foundation. The Heinz Awards each year recognize outstanding individuals for their innovative contributions in three areas: the Arts, the Economy and the Enviro ...
with special focus on global change, 2010
* 2010 National Magazine Award for Commentary
* 2010
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
in Science Writing
*
2015 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
* 2016 Sam Rose '58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Environmental Activism
* 2017 SEAL Environmental Journalism Award
*Blake-Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2017.
Bibliography
Books
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*
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*
*
*
Essays and reporting
*
*
*
[On ]White nose syndrome
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a fungal disease in North American bats which has resulted in the dramatic decrease of the bat population in the United States and Canada, reportedly killing millions as of 2018. The condition is named for a distincti ...
.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
[The ]Paleolithic diet
The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or stone-age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era.
The diet avoids processed food and typically incl ...
.
*
Beecher's Trilobite Bed
Beecher's Trilobite Bed is a Konservat-Lagerstätte of Late Ordovician (Caradoc) age located within the Frankfort Shale in Cleveland's Glen, Oneida County, New York, USA.[Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (20 ...]
.
*
*
*
[Title in the online table of contents is "Paris, Syria, and climate change".]
*
[Online version is titled "Morgan Freeman's 'Ben-Hur'".]
*
*
[Online version is titled "Our automated future".]
*
[Online version is titled "Why facts don’t change our minds".]
*
[Online version is titled "]James Turrell
James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, ''Roden Crater'', a natural cinder cone crater located outside ...
makes light physical".
*
[Online version is titled "Climate change and the new age of extinction".]
*
[Online version is titled "The art of building artificial glaciers".]
*
[Online version is titled "What will another decade of climate crisis bring?".]
*
[Title in the online table of contents is "The climate expert who delivered news no one wanted to hear". Originally published in the June 29, 2009, issue.]
*
[A review of ]Martin J. Sherwin
Martin Jay Sherwin (July 2, 1937October 6, 2021) was an American historian. His scholarship mostly concerned the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation. He served on the faculty at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvan ...
's ''Gambling with armageddon : nuclear roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis'' (New York : Knopf, 2020). Includes information from recently declassified sources.
Introductions, forewords and other contributions
*
Critical studies and reviews of Kolbert's work
;''Field notes from a catastrophe''
*
;''The sixth extinction''
*
;''Under a white sky''
*
———————
;Notes
References
External links
*
"An Interview with Elizabeth Kolbert" ''
Natural Resources Defense Council
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bo ...
'' (NRDC) 2006
*
“Focus 580; The Climate of Man,”2005-05-27, WILL Illinois Public Media, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 7, 2021.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kolbert, Elizabeth
American non-fiction environmental writers
American environmentalists
American women environmentalists
1961 births
Living people
American women journalists
American women non-fiction writers
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winners
The New Yorker staff writers
Journalists from New York City
Writers from the Bronx
Yale University alumni
University of Hamburg alumni
People from Larchmont, New York
Jewish American journalists
20th-century American journalists
21st-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers
People from Williamstown, Massachusetts
Mamaroneck High School alumni
21st-century American Jews