Andrew Revkin

Andrew C. Revkin is a journalist and author who has spent a quarter of a century covering subjects ranging from the assault on the Amazon to the Asian tsunami, from the troubled relationship of science and politics to climate change at the North Pole. From 1995 through 2009, he covered the environment for The New York Times. He is currently the senior fellow at the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies at Pace University and continues to write his "Dot Earth" blog for The Times Op-Ed section. Previous jobs include senior editor positions at both Discover Magazine and Science Digest.

Life

He graduated from Brown University in 1978 with a degree in Biology. He later received a Master's in Journalism from Columbia. During his tenure at the Times his coverage was widely respected, though his coverage at times received criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said of Revkin in 2009, "If he really thinks that human beings, in their natural existence, are going to cause the extinction of life on Earth, Mr. Revkin, why don't you just go kill yourself, and help the planet by dying?"

In 2003, Revkin became the first Times reporter to file stores from the North Pole area and in 2005-6 broke stories about the Bush administration's interference with scientific research, particularly at NASA.

In 2010, he is joining Pace University's Academy for Applied Environmental Studies as Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding.

Revkin has also written books on the once and future Arctic, the Amazon, and global warming. 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."

Two films have been based on his work. The Burning Season, a prize-winning HBO film starring Raul Julia and directed by John Frankenheimer, was based on Revkin's eponymous biography of Chico Mendes, the slain defender of the Amazon rain forest. Rock Star, 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. Revkin is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who sometimes backs up Pete Seeger and is part of Uncle Wade, a blues-roots band.

Awards

• 2008 John Chancellor Award from Columbia University.
• 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship

Works

• The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World, Baker & Taylor, CATS, 2009, ISBN 9781442034297
• The burning season: the murder of Chico Mendes and the fight for the Amazon rain forest, Island Press, 2004, ISBN 9781559630894
• Global warming: understanding the forecast, Abbeville Press, 1992

External links

• [1] - Revkin's biography at the NYT
• Dot Earth - Revkin's Blog at the New York Times
• Revkin Videos - Revkin's YouTube channel.
• Video of Revkin accepting the John Chancellor Award
• "9 Billion People + 1 Planet = ?" Andrew Revkin's interview with Vaclav Smil at the Quantum to Cosmos festival at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
• New York Times review of "The Burning Season."
• New York Times article that inspired "Rock Star."
• National Public Radio interview with Revkin about the making of "Rock Star."
• The home page of Uncle Wade.
• "Q&A: Andrew Revkin", The Observatory December 16, 2008 Columbia Journalism Review