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Life on a Little-Known Planet: Dispatches from a Changing World
A landmark collection of Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert's most important pieces about climate change and the natural world
"To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth," Rolling Stone has advised, "you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert." From her National Magazine Award-winning series The Climate of Man to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert’s work has shaped the way we think about the environment in the twenty-first century. Collected in Life on a Little-Known Planet are her most influential and thought-provoking essays.
An intrepid reporter and a skillful translator of scientific idees, Kolbert expertly captures the wonders of nature and paints vivid portraits of the researchers and concerned citizens working to preserve them. She takes readers all around the globe, from an island in Denmark that’s succeeded in going carbon neutral, to a community in Florida that voted to give rights to waterways, to the Greenland ice sheet, which is melting in a way that has implications for everyone. We meet a biologist who believes we can talk to whales, an entomologist racing to find rare caterpillars before they disappear, and a climatologist who’s considered the "father of global warming," amongst other scientists at the forefront of environmental protection.
The threats to our planet that Kolbert has devoted so much of her career to exposing have only grown more serious. Now is the time to deepen our understanding of the world we are in danger of losing.
"To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth," Rolling Stone has advised, "you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert." From her National Magazine Award-winning series The Climate of Man to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert’s work has shaped the way we think about the environment in the twenty-first century. Collected in Life on a Little-Known Planet are her most influential and thought-provoking essays.
An intrepid reporter and a skillful translator of scientific idees, Kolbert expertly captures the wonders of nature and paints vivid portraits of the researchers and concerned citizens working to preserve them. She takes readers all around the globe, from an island in Denmark that’s succeeded in going carbon neutral, to a community in Florida that voted to give rights to waterways, to the Greenland ice sheet, which is melting in a way that has implications for everyone. We meet a biologist who believes we can talk to whales, an entomologist racing to find rare caterpillars before they disappear, and a climatologist who’s considered the "father of global warming," amongst other scientists at the forefront of environmental protection.
The threats to our planet that Kolbert has devoted so much of her career to exposing have only grown more serious. Now is the time to deepen our understanding of the world we are in danger of losing.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published November 4, 2025
49 people are currently reading
7967 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Kolbert
31 books2,284 followersElizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change and The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 2, 2025
Kolbert is a great writer on environmental issues. Her prose is crystal clear and her passion is contagious. Like all good journalists, she puts eyewitness boots on the ground. That's admirable for a cerebral 60+ woman.
This book, however, is outdated, or, more generously, it's historical. Its a collection of Kolbert's articles, published mostly in the New Yorker, since 2005. But since the 2015 articles, Miami has still been flooding and Greenland has still been melting. 10 years is a long period for climate policies and catastrophes (think Guadalupe River) to evolve but there is no status update here.
The articles from 2023 and later are fascinating. Will AI get us talking to the animals? Will natural entities, such as streams, get legal rights? Oh I do hope so!
This book, however, is outdated, or, more generously, it's historical. Its a collection of Kolbert's articles, published mostly in the New Yorker, since 2005. But since the 2015 articles, Miami has still been flooding and Greenland has still been melting. 10 years is a long period for climate policies and catastrophes (think Guadalupe River) to evolve but there is no status update here.
The articles from 2023 and later are fascinating. Will AI get us talking to the animals? Will natural entities, such as streams, get legal rights? Oh I do hope so!
November 13, 2025
Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize winning author, has gathered for her readers 17 celebratory articles from the last 20 years of her writing career, to highlight and inspire others working for a better climate today and tomorrow.
With devastating climate events happening daily around the world, articles on issues from ten years or over, may seem out-dated to some readers. The lesson here, however, is to acknowledge the journey towards climate action, that sometimes has happened slowly and other times has been revolutionary in nature. Many of the essays draw our focus towards solutions and how the impact of an individual’s work on conserving, communicating, rewilding and protecting our precious world and ecosystems, can motivate and inspire local communities to work together.
Kolbert reminds her readers that, ‘We live in an extraordinary time’ and that the alarming pace of climate decline we witness in the modern world, is a rare occurrence in the planet’s history and one which we are in danger of pushing past a point of no return. ‘But over the last four billion years, only very rarely has change rushed along at the pace it is moving today.’ Rising global carbon emissions and the resulting need for decarbonisation can become political footballs, which can delay helpful technologies which may play a part such as carbon dioxide removal initiatives. Kolbert is quick to note the challenges that need to be surmounted before any of these programmes could be feasible at large scale and suggests instead that these efforts may simply be a distraction from the need to turn the curve of global emissions back down to the steady and stable levels of the past.
Kolbert notes, ‘The amount of CO₂ in the air now is probably greater than it’s been at any time since the mid- Pliocene, three and a half million years ago, when there was a lot less ice at the poles and sea levels were sixty feet higher.’
‘Life on a Little- Known Planet’ is not by any means, a ‘doomist’ text. Instead, it profiles dedicatedindividuals, including more famous names like James Hansen and Christiana Figueres, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, along with their experiences and expert views.
It also focuses on the efforts of individuals around the world, who have a strong sense of place and connection with their environments. The moral and legal question of whether the natural world should have rights, is evaluated by Kolbert and is found to exist throughout human history. ‘From a certain point of view, granting nature a say isn’t radical or new at all. For most of history, people saw themselves as dependent on their surroundings, and “rivers, trees and land” enjoyed the last word.’
Witnessing how both our local and global environments are changing, transforming and collapsing, reminds us of what we are in danger of losing. Writers like Kolbert have been sounding the climate alarm for over 20 years now and this is brought into sharp relief when we read her prescient articles dating back to 2005.
When languages die out; when ecosystems die out; when insect colonies die out; we are not just in danger of losing connections, species and interconnected worlds- which we are still touching the surface of- no, instead, we are in danger of losing ourselves and our relationship with our world. How we respond to the climate crisis as the defining challenge of our times, means that we have to move beyond words, treaties and pledges. We need a response which is rooted in gratitude.
The Earth is not a capitalist commodity.
It is our home.
With devastating climate events happening daily around the world, articles on issues from ten years or over, may seem out-dated to some readers. The lesson here, however, is to acknowledge the journey towards climate action, that sometimes has happened slowly and other times has been revolutionary in nature. Many of the essays draw our focus towards solutions and how the impact of an individual’s work on conserving, communicating, rewilding and protecting our precious world and ecosystems, can motivate and inspire local communities to work together.
Kolbert reminds her readers that, ‘We live in an extraordinary time’ and that the alarming pace of climate decline we witness in the modern world, is a rare occurrence in the planet’s history and one which we are in danger of pushing past a point of no return. ‘But over the last four billion years, only very rarely has change rushed along at the pace it is moving today.’ Rising global carbon emissions and the resulting need for decarbonisation can become political footballs, which can delay helpful technologies which may play a part such as carbon dioxide removal initiatives. Kolbert is quick to note the challenges that need to be surmounted before any of these programmes could be feasible at large scale and suggests instead that these efforts may simply be a distraction from the need to turn the curve of global emissions back down to the steady and stable levels of the past.
Kolbert notes, ‘The amount of CO₂ in the air now is probably greater than it’s been at any time since the mid- Pliocene, three and a half million years ago, when there was a lot less ice at the poles and sea levels were sixty feet higher.’
‘Life on a Little- Known Planet’ is not by any means, a ‘doomist’ text. Instead, it profiles dedicatedindividuals, including more famous names like James Hansen and Christiana Figueres, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, along with their experiences and expert views.
It also focuses on the efforts of individuals around the world, who have a strong sense of place and connection with their environments. The moral and legal question of whether the natural world should have rights, is evaluated by Kolbert and is found to exist throughout human history. ‘From a certain point of view, granting nature a say isn’t radical or new at all. For most of history, people saw themselves as dependent on their surroundings, and “rivers, trees and land” enjoyed the last word.’
Witnessing how both our local and global environments are changing, transforming and collapsing, reminds us of what we are in danger of losing. Writers like Kolbert have been sounding the climate alarm for over 20 years now and this is brought into sharp relief when we read her prescient articles dating back to 2005.
When languages die out; when ecosystems die out; when insect colonies die out; we are not just in danger of losing connections, species and interconnected worlds- which we are still touching the surface of- no, instead, we are in danger of losing ourselves and our relationship with our world. How we respond to the climate crisis as the defining challenge of our times, means that we have to move beyond words, treaties and pledges. We need a response which is rooted in gratitude.
The Earth is not a capitalist commodity.
It is our home.
November 11, 2025
Are you interested about the plant that you’re living on? This was a deep and interesting dive into our changing planet. Where are the bee’s going? Why are lakes shrinking? Should the natural world have rights? All questions answered in this book.
I don’t recommend it as light reading or before bed as it’s more intense and something that I definitely needed to process as I read. Take your time it’s worth the read! This is a book that examines the impact that people have had on the planet and what we need to focus on.
I don’t recommend it as light reading or before bed as it’s more intense and something that I definitely needed to process as I read. Take your time it’s worth the read! This is a book that examines the impact that people have had on the planet and what we need to focus on.
November 23, 2025
Another Great Read
Kolbert is one of the greatest reporters of climate change. Every time I read one of her books, I am left wanting to know more. Whether it's species extinction, ecosystem collapse, CO2 emissions, rising seas......you learn that everything is connected and if no one is going to do anything to change the outcome, there will be no future. I highly recommend this book to any skeptics out there, and also to the deniers of climate change. Saying that something won't happen enough times will not make it true.
Kolbert is one of the greatest reporters of climate change. Every time I read one of her books, I am left wanting to know more. Whether it's species extinction, ecosystem collapse, CO2 emissions, rising seas......you learn that everything is connected and if no one is going to do anything to change the outcome, there will be no future. I highly recommend this book to any skeptics out there, and also to the deniers of climate change. Saying that something won't happen enough times will not make it true.
November 26, 2025
Your writing feels like it was meant to be drawn. The flow, the framing, the way you capture emotion, it’s the kind of storytelling that breathes in pictures.
I'm a commissioned artist and work on comic and webtoon adaptations. Your story had that instant spark of imagery that is meant for a visual adaptation.
I'd love to connect through Instagram (@eve_verse_) or Discord (bennett_lol) if you’d like to explore that.
November 24, 2025
A collection of her essays on the natural world-focused on climate change. Her writing is accessible and interesting. I could listen to this numerous times and still keep learning. I was struck by how one person can make such a difference like David Wagner and caterpillars and Sam Wasser and DNA in scat.
December 3, 2025
Great compilation of the articles that she wrote for the New Yorker and other magazines. Quite intense to read altogether, as there is some hope among the doom and gloom of how we’ve done such a phenomenal job of destroying this planet.
November 4, 2025
Inspiring book. Strongly recommend.
November 16, 2025
An excellent compilation of essays about our world, and how the impacts of climate change have touched humans across the globe, as well as other creatures and geography we share it with
November 22, 2025
Great read both educational and informative.
November 24, 2025
Wow. If you have any interest in the world around us, you should read this book. Excellent and accessible writing about the parts of nature that most of us don't think about on a daily basis.
November 24, 2025
Fab, she’s remarkable.
Read
November 29, 2025I think I need to try the print/e-version over the audio book.
December 1, 2025
My AudioFile review to come.
December 4, 2025
An essential read for our era of accelerating global warming, climate change, habitat loss, and species extinction.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews