Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer of New Yorker since 1999, and for decades to inform the public about our changing planet science for decades for decades, human beings are for decades. I have been playing possible solutions.
Kolbert pursued this story, wrote numerous essays and articles, traveled around the world, and published several prestigious books, including the “The Sixth extinction”, which won the Pulitzer Award for General Nonfiction. The Washington Post named her 2021 book, “White Sky,” as “White Sky”, one of the ten books of the year. Kolbert also won two National Magazine Awards, One National Academies Awards and BBVA BioPhilia Award for Environmental Communication.
Monday, February 24, Colbert comes to Columbia Climate School Signature Speaker Series Lecture“Under the white sky: Sun Global Engineering and other bright ideas.” The State of the Planet on the Earth talked with Kolbert about the upcoming speech and how she saw her role as a science journalist, and talked about how to work in the public’s perception of climate science since Kolbert began her career. .
How did you start as a scientific writer and a reporter?
It is a long and winding story. I started as a news clerk in the New York Times. Then for about 10 years, I was the political journalist of The Times.,,, It deals with state and local governments. In 1999 I went to work in New Yorker and began to think about the story of longer distribution than the latest political seizure. In 2001, I went to Greenland with the New York Air Defense Forces. The trip gave me a big impression and opened my way to become a scientific writer.
You have recently returned to Greenland with climate scientist Marco Tedesco travel With a pleasant essay New Yorker. What is your experience in changing your understanding of climate change we see around the world?
Traveling to Greenland is always an amazing experience. When Marco puts it in a piece, a kind of spell is applied. One thing is to read about changes in the Arctic, and the other is to look at them and talk with those who live through them. Marco and I visited Russell Glacier, one of the more accessible glaciers in Greenland. It has been clear how many retreats have been retreated in recent years to Bi X -putt like me. Once you have an ice, you can see that there is a mass.
In “under the sky,” you discuss the struggle of mankind, which has to fix the environmental crisis that will help them make. What are some of the main messages in this book and what should the participants expect to learn about coming? Climate school Do you talk about complex opportunities and obstacles geographic gifts?
“Under the sky” is not exactly a message book. I will say, ‘What is the message?’ book. It is a problem that often demands new involvement by seeing human intervention in nature. One example I wrote is the reversal of the Chicago River to solve the sewage problem of the city. The reversal had an unintentional effect of all kinds. For example, it allowed a species exchange between Mississippi and Great Lake basin. This unintentional result led to a monumental project of the new generation, and responded to the first effect.
This pattern raises a lot of questions and makes it difficult to keep it on that face. How many interventions can we intervene on each other? It is not clear that there is a real alternative at this point.
Geo Engineering is the ultimate example of intervening in the natural world to cope with previous intervention. It shows the pattern I just mentioned, and I think it shows where it is heading to a better place.
“Earth engineering is the ultimate example of intervening in the natural world to fight previous intervention. I think it shows a place to go to a better place. ”
You have won a Pulitzer for the book “The Sixth Extinction” on the mass extinction case.
I think that a statue like Pulitzer makes people read what they are not. In that sense, they respond to wrong information. But as we see, the effect is limited.
Do you think the media is lacking in climate science? What is the biggest change in the public’s perception of science writing and journalism since I started my career?
It would be said that the scope of the media to climate science is similar to the application of vaccine science. There are many things if readers/viewers want good information. But unfortunately, there are many wrong information, and many people seem to have more appeal to many people.
Attitudes of science and everything else are much more polarized. I am sorry that I said I was in the loss of how to fight it. What I can do is to keep getting information.
Elizabeth Colbert will provide the following: Signature Speaker Series Lecture Monday, February 24th at 4-6 pm at the forum of Columbia Climate School. This event is free and open to the public.
