Andrew Revkin

He holds a biology degree from Brown UniversityBrown UniversityBrown University is a private nonprofit research university in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by Rhode Island's colonial legislature in 1764, it is known for its undergraduate Open Curriculum, which has no common required core. Christina H. Paxson, president since July 2012, announced on August 3, 2026, that the 2026–27 academic year would be her last in office. As of October 1, 2026, the search for Brown's 20th president remained underway.Open the full entry and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University; he was a senior writer at Science Digest, a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and a senior editor at Discover. In 1985 he published his first stories on how human activities affect the climate.⁠[1]

In 1982 he graduated from Columbia University’s journalism program.⁠[2]

In 1983 his story on untallied deaths of people who ingested the herbicide paraquat won an Investigative Reporters & Editors award.⁠[3]

On June 29, 1990, The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest, written while he was a Discover journalist, was published; it recounts the struggles of Amazon rubber tappers and the December 1988 assassination of tapper and union leader Chico Mendes, and a Kirkus review said it integrates history, politics and biography.⁠[4]

In 1992 he predicted that earth scientists would soon identify a “geological age of our own making,” an idea seen as an early marker of the Anthropocene concept.⁠[2]

In 1994 HBO released the film The Burning Season, based on his biography of Chico Mendes; it won three Golden Globes.⁠[5]

From 1995 through 2009 he was a staff reporter at The New York Times, covering subjects from threats to New York City’s water supply to the Indian Ocean tsunami as well as climate science and policy; he made three Arctic reporting trips and was the first Times reporter to file stories, video and photos from the sea ice around the North Pole.⁠[6]

In August 1997 film producer Robert Lawrence read his New York Times article about Tim “Ripper” Owens, the singer in a Judas Priest tribute band who went on to front Judas Priest itself; the article became the basis for the 2001 film Rock Star.⁠[7]

In 2006 Kingfisher published The North Pole Was Here, his account of Arctic climate change for the whole family.⁠[1]

In January 2006 NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. federal agency responsible for the civilian space program, aeronautics research and space science. Established by law in 1958 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has run programs including Mercury, the Apollo Moon landings, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station and Artemis.Open the full entry climate scientist James Hansen told him he had been warned of “dire consequences” if he kept making similar statements, and his reporting showed that George Deutsch, a White House-appointed NASA public affairs officer, had denied a National Public Radio request to interview Hansen. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin later issued a statement that public affairs officers were not to alter or filter scientific material.⁠[8]

In October 2007 he started the New York Times blog Dot Earth, on how the Earth can head toward 9 billion people by 2050; by late 2009 it had about 300,000 unique visitors a month.⁠[9]

In 2008 he won the John Chancellor Award for some two decades of climate coverage; that December he said the paper had little space for these issues and the blog created room to keep focus on them.⁠[10]

In December 2009, while covering the Copenhagen climate summit, he took a buyout from The New York Times and left its reporting staff while continuing Dot Earth, and accepted a post as senior fellow for environmental understanding at Pace University.⁠[9]

From 2010 through 2016 he was a member of the Anthropocene Working Group, created by the international geological community to assess whether a new geological epoch has begun.⁠[11]

In April 2010, after two and a half years and 940 posts as a news blog, Dot Earth moved to the Times’s Opinion section; he wrote that as a freelance blogger he would say what he thought in ways he could not as a reporter.⁠[10]

TIMETIMETIME is an American newsmagazine and media brand founded by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, which published its first issue on March 3, 1923; it is headquartered in New York and known for its Person of the Year selection and the TIME100 list. Since 2018 it has been personally owned by Marc and Lynne Benioff; its current Chief Executive Officer is Jessica Sibley, and its Editor-in-Chief is Sam Jacobs.Open the full entry named Dot Earth one of the top 25 blogs of 2013.⁠[12]

On November 14, 2016, the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica announced it had hired him as a senior reporter covering how countries and corporations are responding to climate change; he started on December 5, and said that even in his six years as an opinion writer his only advocacy was for reality.⁠[3]

In spring 2018 he joined the staff of the National Geographic Society as strategic adviser for environmental and science journalism.⁠[12]

In 2018 he published Weather: An Illustrated History with Lisa Mechaley, which traces 4.5 billion years of weather and climate in 100 entries, from major weather events and climate change to the people who first worked out how the planet functions.⁠[13]

On July 1, 2019, Columbia University’s Earth Institute announced a new Initiative on Communication and Sustainability headed by him, to build toolkits and forums helping scientists and journalists communicate with the public and policymakers.⁠[2]

In October 2022 he moved Sustain What, his blog, webcast and newsletter, to Substack after 18 months on MetaMetaMeta (Meta Platforms, Inc.) is a publicly listed American technology company, renamed from Facebook in 2021, that operates social communication, digital advertising, virtual reality, smart glasses and artificial intelligence businesses.Open the full entry’s Bulletin platform; he said his focus is shifting the discussion from climate change to climate risk, and that he is not climate-centric.⁠[14]

He and Bjørn LomborgBjørn LomborgBjørn Lomborg is a Danish political scientist and author who heads the Copenhagen Consensus Center; he is known for books such as The Skeptical Environmentalist and False Alarm and for ranking global problems by cost-benefit analysis, and his views on climate and the environment have long been disputed by scientists.Open the full entry appeared together on episode 339 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, a climate change debate whose description calls him a climate journalist with 21 years at The New York Times; topics included journalism, human emissions and public opinion.⁠[15]

On July 14, 2023, he ended his post at Columbia University and the initiative for practical and budgetary reasons; he wrote that his Sustain What webcasts, begun in March 2020, had drawn close to 3 million viewers over some 400 episodes, and that his work ahead would centre on mentorship, speaking, workshops and consultancy, along with writing books, film projects and recording an album of his music.⁠[16]

Personal website: Public link: https://revkin.substack.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

X: Public account: https://x.com/Revkin (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

The New York Times: Official website: https://www.nytimes.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[6]

Pace University: Official website: https://www.pace.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

ProPublica: Official website: https://www.propublica.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

National Geographic Society: Official website: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[12]

Columbia University: Official website: https://www.columbia.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[16]