The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Elizabeth Kolbert, is cataloging the planet’s climate crisis

As writer of The New Yorker staff since 1999, Elizabeth Kolbert has spent decades informing public reading about the science of our changing planet, the complicated part that humans have played in climate change and the possible solutions for our future.

Kolbert has traveled the world in search of these stories, written innumerable essays and articles, and has published several famous books, including “The Sixth Extinction”, which won a Pulitzer Award for General No Fiction. The Washington Post appointed his book 2021, “Under a White Sky”, one of the 10 best books of the year. Kolbert also won two National Magazine Awards awards, a National Academy Award and the BBVA Biophilia Award for Environmental Communication.

Monday, February 24, Kolbert visited Columbia’s climate school to give the Signature Speaker Series Conference“Under a white sky: solar geoyngroyery and other bright ideas.” The planet’s state spoke with Kolbert about his talk, how he sees his role as a scientific reporter, and the changes Kolbert have seen in the public perception of climate science since his career began.

How did you start as a scientific writer and journalist?

It is a long and winding story. I started as a news employee at the New York Times. Then, for approximately a decade, I was a political reporter on the Times, covering the state and local government. In 1999, I went to work in The New Yorker and began to think about stories that would have a longer life than the last political dispute. In 2001, I went to Greenland with the New York National Guard. That trip caused me a great impression and put me on the way to become a scientific writer.

He traveled back to Greenland recently with the scientist of the Tedesco Climate and wrote about him journey In a moving trial for The New Yorker. How was that experience and altered its understanding of the climatic changes we are seeing worldwide?

Traveling to Greenland is always an incredible experience. As Marco put it in the piece, he exercises a kind of spell. It is one thing to read about the changes that take place in the Arctic, and another very different to see them for yourself and talk to the people who live them. Marco and I visited Russell Glacier, which is one of the most accessible glaciers in Greenland. He was quite clear, even for a non -expert like me, how much he has retired in recent years; You can see that where there was ice, now there is only silt.

In “Under a White Sky”, you discuss the struggle of humanity to fix the environmental crises that helped create. What were some of the key messages of the book and what should you expect to learn in your next? Climate School Talk about the complex opportunities and obstacles presented by geo -ngealry?

“Under a White Sky” is not exactly a message book. I would say that it is more a ‘What is the message?’ book. Look at human interventions in nature, which often result in problems that demand new interventions. An example on which I write is the reversal of the Chicago River, which intended to solve the city’s wastewater problems. The investment has had all kinds of unintentional effects; For example, it has allowed the exchange of species between the Mississippi basins and the great lakes. These involuntary consequences have led to a new generation of monumental projects, aimed at counteracting the effects of the first.

This pattern raises many questions and, at first glance, seems difficult to maintain. How many interventions can we overlap one one? At the same time, it is not clear that there are practical alternatives at this time.

Geoingeniería is the last example of intervention in the natural world to counteract prior intervention. Illustrates the pattern I alluded to, and I think it shows where things are directed, for better or worse.

You won a Pulitzer for your book “The Sixth Extinction”, which is the current mass extinction event caused by the human being, do you think prizes like this raise critical climate research and help to counteract the erroneous information of the climate?

I think that prizes like Pulitzer make people read things that could otherwise. Then, in that sense, yes, they counteract erroneous information. But the effect, as we are seeing, is limited.

Where do you think the media fall short of climate science? What have been some of the greatest changes in the public perception of scientific writing and journalism since your career began?

I would say that the coverage of the media of climate science is comparable to its coverage of vaccine science. If readers/spectators want good information, there is a lot out there. But, unfortunately, there is also a lot of wrong information available and, for many people, that wrong information seems to have more attractive.

Definitely, attitudes towards science, and almost everything else, have become much more polarized. I am sorry to say that I am lost by how to fight that. Everything I can do, I think, is to continue taking the information.

Elizabeth Kolbert delivered the Signature Speaker Series Conference In the Columbia Climate School forum on Monday, February 24. The event was free and open to the public.