2026 Sea Secrets Lecture Series with Elizabeth Kolbert

Program at 5:30 p.m.; Reception following the program

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Elizabeth Kolbert joins Kerry Sanders, former NBC News correspondent, for a conversation that brings decades of environmental reporting into sharp focus. Kolbert’s work has taken her from melting ice sheets and disappearing species to communities grappling with climate change and scientists testing the boundaries of geoengineering. Her insightful storytelling has shaped global understanding of how human activity is transforming the planet.

The discussion will feature her latest book, “Life on a Little-Known Planet: Dispatches from a Changing World,” a collection of deeply reported essays that captures an era of profound ecological change. Kolbert follows researchers and conservationists into the field—tracking caterpillars in Texas, confronting invasive species in New Zealand, and exploring surprising attempts to heal damaged ecosystems. Blending scientific findings, field updates, and wry humor, the book reveals the tension between ecological loss and the enduring wonder of the natural world.

Kolbert and Sanders will also revisit themes from her Pulitzer Prize–winning “The Sixth Extinction,” along with other influential works that illuminate the cascading impacts of climate change, species decline, and the choices that will shape Earth’s future. Their conversation offers a compelling look at the urgent environmental questions of our time—and at the role of journalism in helping society understand and navigate a rapidly changing world.

About the Speaker
Elizabeth Kolbert has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999 and is the author of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe”; “The Sixth Extinction,” for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2015; “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future,” which was named one of the best books of 2021 by The Washington Post, TIME, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Smithsonian Magazine; and "H Is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z," which grew out of essays she wrote for The New Yorker. Her newest book is a collection of essays titled “Life on a Little-Known Planet.” Elizabeth Kolbert is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the prestigious Heinz Award in the Environment, which recognizes individuals for their work in confronting environmental concerns, as well as the Blake-Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2021 Kolbert was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.