Elizabeth Kolbert
Elizabeth Kolbert
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Full Name and Common Aliases
Elizabeth Kolbert is a renowned American journalist, author, and non-fiction writer.
Birth and Death Dates
Kolbert was born on April 16, 1961. As of this writing, she is still alive.
Nationality and Profession(s)
She holds American nationality and works as a staff writer at The New Yorker. Additionally, Kolbert is also a professor in the Literature Department at Princeton University.
Early Life and Background
Born to Philip and Patricia Kolbert in Boston, Massachusetts, Elizabeth spent her early years in Brookline. Her parents, both high school English teachers, instilled a love for literature and writing in their daughter from an early age. Kolbert developed a passion for science and nature during her time at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School.
Major Accomplishments
Throughout her illustrious career, Kolbert has achieved numerous notable accomplishments:
Pulitzer Prize: In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, a book exploring the effects of human activity on the natural world.
National Book Award nomination: Her book Under a White Sky: The Nature and Future of Our Planet was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award in the category of General Nonfiction.
Notable Works or Actions
Some of her most notable works include:
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (2014): This book delves into the current mass extinction event caused by human activities and explores its implications for the natural world.
Under a White Sky: The Nature and Future of Our Planet (2021): In this work, Kolbert examines the consequences of human actions on the environment, focusing on climate change, deforestation, and species extinction.
Impact and Legacy
Elizabeth Kolbert's writings have significantly contributed to raising awareness about environmental issues. Her work has inspired numerous discussions, debates, and actions in various sectors:
Conservation efforts: Her books have influenced policymakers, scientists, and conservationists worldwide, leading to increased efforts to protect endangered species and ecosystems.
Raising public awareness: Through her writing, Kolbert has helped bridge the gap between scientific research and general knowledge, making environmental issues more accessible and understandable to a broader audience.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
Kolbert's exceptional writing skills, paired with her in-depth research and dedication to storytelling, have made her one of the most respected voices on environmental issues. Her ability to convey complex scientific concepts in an engaging manner has earned her widespread recognition:
Accessible science communication: Kolbert's approach to explaining scientific topics has helped popularize environmentalism among a wider audience.
A voice for the planet: Through her work, she continues to serve as a powerful advocate for the natural world and its inhabitants.
Quotes by Elizabeth Kolbert
Elizabeth Kolbert's insights on:
WHY is ocean acidification so dangerous? The question is tough to answer only because the list of reasons is so long. Depending on how tightly organisms are able to regulate their internal chemistry, acidification may affect such basic processes as metabolism, enzyme activity, and protein function. Because it will.
The paper concluded that if current emissions trends continue, within the next fifty years or so “all coral reefs will cease to grow and start to dissolve.
If climate change drove the megafauna extinct, then this presents yet another reason to worry about what we are doing to global temperatures. If, on the other hand, people were to blame – and it seems increasingly likely that they were – then the import is almost more disturbing. It would mean that the current extinction event began all the way back in the middle of the last ice age. It would mean that man was a killer – to use the term of art an “overkiller” – pretty much right from the start.
What are the Chinese doing, what are we doing, what are – so we need, both the developed world and the developing world, really need to be moving, once again, getting all your arrows in the same direction if you want to have any impact.
As best as can be determined, the world is now warmer than it has been at any point in the last two millennia, and, if current trends continue, by the end of the century it will likely be hotter than at any point in the last two million years.
Under business as usual, by mid-century things are looking rather grim,” he told me a few hours after I had arrived at One Tree. We were sitting at a beat-up picnic table, looking out over the heartbreaking blue of the Coral Sea. The island’s large and boisterous population of terns was screaming in the background. Caldeira paused: “I mean, they’re looking grim already.
If warming were held to a minimum, the team estimated that between 22 and 31 percent of the species would be “committed to extinction” by 2050. If warming were to reach what was at that point considered a likely maximum – a figure that now looks too low – by the middle of this century, between 38 and 52 percent of the species would be fated to disappear.
