Andrew C. Revkin is an American science and environmental journalist, author and educator. He has written on a wide range of subjects including destruction of the Amazon rain forest, the 2004 Asian tsunami, sustainable development, climate change, and the changing environment around the North Pole. He is the founding director of the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at The Earth Institute of Columbia University. Previously he was strategic adviser for environmental and science journalism at National Geographic Society. Through 2017 he was senior reporter for climate change at the independent investigative newsroom ProPublica. 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. 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. 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. In 2010, he joined Pace University's Academy for Applied Environmental Studies as Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding. Revkin has also written books on humanity's weather and climate learning journey, 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." 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. 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.
Works
Weather: An Illustrated History, from Cloud Atlases to Climate Change. New York: Sterling, 2018,
The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World. Boston: Kingfisher, 2006,
Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast. New York: Abbeville Press, 1992,
. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004 ,
Films based on his work
Two films have been based on Revkin's writing:
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.
Songwriter and musician
Revkin is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who leads a Hudson Valley roots ensemble called . He performed frequently with Pete Seeger between 2003 and 2014 and was a member of Uncle Wade, a blues-roots band. His first album, , featuring guest contributions by Dar Williams, Mike Marshall and Bruce Molsky, was released in November, 2013.
