Elizabeth Kolbert

American journalist and author · United States · On the map · Journalists · Born 1961 · age 65

Elizabeth Kolbert 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.

Elizabeth Kolbert is read about 59 times a day, in 16 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 19 September 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 60 days, one point a day.

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A life in dates

2016Rose-Walters PrizeAward2015Pulitzer Prize for General NonfictionAward2014“I think that people are aware of the potential impacts of climate change on Arctic species.”In their wordsInterview with Democracy Now (2014)Read the whole statement

“now the sort of general theory is, you know, yes, the Earth changes very slowly, except for these extraordinary moments.”In their wordsInterview with Democracy Now (2014)Read the whole statement

“massive things need to be done. Obviously we need to start transitioning our whole economy off of fossil fuels. That’s not - that’s not a small thing. That’s a big thing.”In their wordsInterview with Democracy Now (2014)Read the whole statement

“We are effectively undoing the beauty and the variety and the richness of the world which has taken tens of millions of years to reach... We're sort of unraveling that. ...”In their words“In The World's 'Sixth Extinction,' Are Humans The Asteroid?” interview in NPR (2014 Feb 12)Read the whole statement

“The definition, I suppose, would be many, many organisms across many, many different groups. And that is, really, what we are seeing and that is what makes scientists fear ...”In their wordsOn how she defines mass extinctionRead the whole statement

“After a mass extinction, it has generally tended to take many millions of years for life to recover. It's not something that you bounce back from, from one day to the next.”In their wordsOn the expectancy of extinct species bouncing backRead the whole statement

Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science JournalismAward2010Guggenheim FellowshipAwardHeinz AwardAward2006National Magazine AwardAward2005AAAS Kavli Science Journalism AwardAward1961Born6 July 1961

Also in Deutsch Français

Media & music

Photos 6

Yale University

Jakobshavn icefjord in West Greenland, one of the places Kolbert visited on her travels

Climeworks, one of the companies Kolbert visited while writing Under a White Sky

The now extinct Great Auk

Devil's Hole Pupfish

In their own words 2

Elizabeth Kolbert

2 statements, newest first

we’ve already set so many changes in motion, right? I mean, climate change is occurring; whatever anyone in Congress says, it’s occurring right now.
2014 · Interview with Democracy Now (2014), Own words
Looking out your window today, the weather you see doesn’t really tell you what’s going on. The earth is big and complicated - and there’s a big time lag in the system.
On how climate change might not be apparent to individuals in “Telling the Big Story: An Interview with Science Writer Elizabeth Kolbert”, Own words