Andrew C. Revkin (born 1956) is an American science and environmental journalist, webcaster, author and educator. He has written on a wide range of subjects including destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the 2004 Asian tsunami, sustainable development, climate change, and the changing environment around the North Pole. From 2019 to 2023 he directed the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at The Earth Institute of Columbia University.[1] While at Columbia, he launched a video webcast, Sustain What,[2] that seeks solutions to tangled environmental and societal challenges through dialogue. In 2023, the webcast integrated with his Substack dispatch of the same name.[3]
Previously he was strategic adviser for environmental and science journalism at National Geographic Society.[4] Through 2017 he was senior reporter for climate change at the independent investigative newsroom ProPublica.[5] He was a reporter for The New York Times from 1995 through 2009. In 2007, he created the Dot Earth environmental blog for The Times. The blog moved to the Opinion Pages in 2010 and ran through 2016. From 2010 to 2016 he was also the Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at Pace University.[6] He is also a performing songwriter and was a frequent accompanist of Pete Seeger.
Early in his career he held senior editor and senior writer positions at Discover magazine and Science Digest, respectively.[10]
From 1995 through 2009, Revkin covered the environment for The New York Times. In 2003, he became the first Times reporter to file stories from the North Pole area and in 2005-6 broke stories about the Bush administration's interference with scientific research, particularly at NASA.[11]
In 2010, he joined Pace University's Academy for Applied Environmental Studies as Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding.[12]
Revkin has also written books on the Anthropocene,[13] humanity's weather and climate learning journey,[14] the once and future Arctic, the Amazon, and global warming.[15] He was interviewed by Seed magazine about his book The North Pole Was Here, which was published in 2006. He stressed that "the hard thing to convey in print as journalists, and for society to absorb, is that this is truly a century-scale problem."[16]
Revkin is among those credited with developing the idea that humans, through growing impacts on Earth's climate and other critical systems, are creating a distinct geological epoch, the Anthropocene.[17] He was a member of the "Anthropocene" Working Group from 2010 to 2016. The group is charged by a branch of the International Commission on Stratigraphy with gauging evidence that a formal change in the Geologic Time Scale is justified.[citation needed]
Andrew Revkin reported for The New York Times in 2003 from a research camp set up on sea ice drifting near the North Pole. Scientists erected the sign, then added "was" as currents were pushing the ice several miles a day.
Works
The Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene. New York: Abrams Books, 2020, ISBN1419742779
Weather: An Illustrated History, from Cloud Atlases to Climate Change. New York: Sterling, 2018, ISBN1454921404
The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World. Boston: Kingfisher, 2006, ISBN9780753459935
Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast. New York: Abbeville Press, 1992, ISBN978-1558593107
Rock Star (2001), starring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston, was based on "A Metal-Head Becomes a Metal-God. Heavy," a 1997 New York Times article by Revkin. The article described how a singer in a Judas Priest tribute band rose to replace his idol in the real band.[10]
^"Skipping Ahead". Seed. 21 April 2006. Archived from the original on 22 April 2009. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
^Steffen, W.; Grinevald, J.; Crutzen, P.; McNeill, J. (2011). "The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 369 (1938): 842–867. Bibcode:2011RSPTA.369..842S. doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0327. PMID21282150.
