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Elizabeth Kolbert Biography

Elizabeth Kolbert

Elizabeth Kolbert (born 1961) is an American journalist and author and visiting fellow at Williams College. She is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, and as an observer and commentator on environmentalism for The New Yorker magazine. As of March 2017, Kolbert serves as a member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist's Science and Security Board.

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Elizabeth Kolbert Quotes

Humans will eventually become extinct. People treat that as a radical thing to say. But the fossil record shows us that everything eventually becomes extinct.

Fossils, People, Radical, Records, Shows, Thing

You're an animal that needs to move across the landscape, you can't anymore, and that's another way we're just changing the surface of the Earth in very dramatic ways.

Moving, Animal, Needs, Way, Dramatic

We're talking really huge global-scale change, and I did not feel that I had the prescription for that kind of action, so I'm going to leave it to the reader.

Action, Kind, Leave, Talking

No matter what Donald Trump says, it's clear that global warming is rapidly changing conditions on our planet.

Global Warming, Matter, Says, Trump

Well in the scientific there is virtually no debate over certain things. For example, that we are changing the world. Humans are changing the world very radically, very dramatically. Climate change, which I assume is one of the points you're alluding to, is at the heart of this.

Changing, Climate, Example, Heart, Humans

People sometimes say we need to be really almost on a wartime footing if you want to change. Our whole economy is based on burning fossil fuels, which is taking CO2 out of the ground and putting it up into the air.

Air, Based, Needs, People, Say

I don't think there are too many places left that humans haven't pretty thoroughly explored.

Havens, Humans, Places, Thinking, Thoroughly

The Earth is big. There are huge natural forces that have worked over geological time. But it turns out, when you look carefully at the geological time, you can't find anything like us.

Earth, Looks, Natural, Turns

You've got to do everything, everything's got to be pointing in the same direction and you've got to really turn this whole economic engine from one that's based on fossil fuels to one that isn't.

Direction, Economic, Fossils, Fuel, Fuels, Pointing

Parents want their kids’ approval, a reversal of the past ideal of children striving for their parents’ approval.

Children, Ideal, Kids, Past, Striving

I traveled really to amazing places. I went to the Great Barrier Reef, I went to the Amazon, I went to the Andes, to try to bring people stories of sort of what's going on out in the world and bring this issue alive, in a way, and put it out there.

Barrier, Issues, People, Reef, Trying, Way

As soon as you acknowledge that we're changing the planet on this scale, that it has very potentially massive repercussions and very damaging repercussions, then the next question is okay, what are we going to do about it?

Acknowledge, Changing, Next, Planets, Question, Scales

One of the reasons that people, many people, many environmentalists are critical of President [Barack] Obama's policies towards global warming is on the one hand he says the right things and he says he's committed to trying to reduce our current emissions.

Environmentalists, Hands, People, Reduce, Right, Trying

Letting things slide is always the easiest thing to do, in parenting no less than in banking, public education, and environmental protection. A lack of discipline is apparent these days in just about every aspect of American society. Why? This should be is a much larger question, one to ponder as we take out the garbage and tie our kids' shoes.

Days, Easiest, Kids, Shoes, Ties

Humans will eventually become extinct. People treat that as a radical thing to say. But the fossil record shows us that everything eventually becomes extinct. It depends what "eventually" means. But the idea that were going to be around for the rest of global history. . . I don't think there's any scientist who would suggest that is true. It could be millions of years from now. We may leave descendants that are humanlike.

Idea, Mean, People, Radical, Record, Thinking

I did not mean to suggest that autism could be traced to Neanderthal genes. The point is that some genes that have been implicated in autism changed pretty significantly between the time Neanderthal line and human line split.

Autism, Mean, Neanderthals, Pretty, Suggest, Time

[On the birther movement:] Here we are, quadrillions of bytes deep into the Information Age. And yet information, it seems, has never mattered less.

Age, Information, Movement, Quadrillions

Mitochondrial DNA, which is a sort of abridged version of DNA, is passed directly from mother to child, so it's something that can be looked at to trace matrilineal descent.

Child, Children, Directly, Dna, Matrilineal, Mother

We can't say that when x happens we get a mass extinction. To the extent we understand mass extinction, one has been caused by glaciation event, one has been caused by a massive climate change, and one has been caused by an asteroid. These events turn out to have no precedent.

Change, Climate, Events, Glaciation, Mass Extinction

People tend to focus on the here and now. The problem is that, once global warming is something that most people can feel in the course of their daily lives, it will be too late to prevent much larger, potentially catastrophic changes.

Catastrophic, Course, Focus, Motivational, People

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