Andrew Revkin

Andrew C. Revkin
File:Andrew Revkin, Journalist.jpg
Born	1956
Occupation	Environmental writer, professor
Education	Master's of Journalism
Alma mater	Brown University Columbia University
Genre	Science writing
Subject	Global warming
Notable works	Dot Earth (blog); The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest
Notable awards	Guggenheim Fellowship; John Chancellor Award; Feinstone Environmental Award
Website
dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com

Andrew C. Revkin is an American science and environmental writer. He has written on a wide range of subjects including destruction of the Amazon rain forest, the 2004 Asian tsunami, science and politics, climate change, and the North Pole. A reporter for the New York Times from 1995 to 2009, Revkin currently writes the Dot Earth environmental blog for The Times' Opinion Pages. He is also Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies at Pace University, as well as a songwriter and musician.

Education and career

Born and raised in Rhode Island, Revkin graduated from Brown University in 1978 with a degree in Biology. He later received a Master's in Journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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 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."

Works

• The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World. Boston: Kingfisher, 2006, ISBN 9780753459935
• Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast. New York: Abbeville Press, 1992, ISBN 978-1558593107
• The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004 [1990], ISBN 978-1-55963-089-4

-- translated and published also in Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, Portuguese, and Thai editions

Films based on his work

Two films have been based on Revkin's writing:

• The Burning Season (1994), 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 (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.

Songwriter and musician

Revkin is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who sometimes backed up Pete Seeger and, from 2003 to 2011, was part of Uncle Wade, a blues-roots band.

His first album, A Very Fine Line, featuring guest contributions by Dar Williams, Mike Marshall (musician) and Bruce Molsky, was released in November, 2013.

Awards

• 2015 American Geophysical Union, Robert C. Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism
• 2011 National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine joint National Academies Communication Award
• 2008 John Chancellor Award, Columbia University
• 2007-2008 Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, Tufts University
• 2007 Honorary Sol Feinstone Environmental Award, SUNY-ESF, Syracuse, NY
• 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2003 National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine joint National Academies Communication Award
• 2002 and 1986 American Association for the Advancement of Science (climate change, nuclear winter)
• 1983 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, for a magazine article "on the worldwide death toll from misuse of Paraquat"
• Honorary doctorate, Pace University
• His book, The North Pole Was Here, was "A Junior Library Guild selection"

External links

• Andrew C. Revkin - Biography at the NYTimes
• 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."
• "Q&A: Andrew Revkin", The Observatory December 16, 2008 Columbia Journalism Review