Elizabeth Kolbert (born July 6, 1961) is an American author and journalist. Since 1999, she has been a staff writer for The New Yorker, where she has covered politics and the environment.[1]
Elizabeth Kolbert started working for The New York Times as a stringer 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. She published several profiles in the New York Times magazine on figures such as former Governor Mario M. Cuomo[6] and former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato.[7]
Kolbert has written extensively on environmental issues. She served as the editor for The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009.[13] In 2014, her book The Sixth Extinction introduced the concept of a human-caused mass extinction to a general audience. The New York Times named it one of the ten best books of the year,[14] and it won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.[15] Her 2021 book Under a White Sky explored “the spiralling absurdity of human attempts to control nature with technology.”[16] Kolbert published an alphabet book about climate change called H is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z in 2024. The book was illustrated by Wesley Allsbrook.[17]
The Prophet of Love: And Other Tales of Power and Deceit was published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2004. The book includes a collection of articles about New York politics and public figures such as Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and Rev. Al Sharpton. All but one of the articles were originally published in The New Yorker.
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future focuses on the various kinds of environmental crises created by the Anthropocene and different degrees of technological solutions available to humanity to address them. Nevertheless, the book is also critical of full-blown techno-solutionism. The title refers to the most extreme climate change mitigation strategy, solar geoengineering, designed to reflect sunlight from the earth. Throughout the book she explores how a technological fix for one problem can lead to other problems, while acknowledging the important role these technologies might play.
H is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z was published in 2024. Illustrated by artist Wesley Allsbrook, the book documents the history of climate change along with our uncertain future in twenty-six essays for each letter of the alphabet.
Personal life
Kolbert resides in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband, John Kleiner, and three sons (Ned, Matthew, and Aaron).[19]
Recognition
2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award[20]
2006 National Magazine Award for Public Interest[21]
Kolbert, Elizabeth & Francis Spufford, eds. (2007). The ends of the Earth: an anthology of the finest writing on the Arctic and the Antarctic. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Bloomsbury.
Kolbert, Elizabeth, ed. (2009). The best American science and nature writing 2009. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
"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.
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