Carolyn Kormann
Carolyn Kormann has been a contributor to the The New Yorker since 2012, and became a staff writer in 2018, covering energy, the environment, and climate change. Previously, she was a Web editor and a deputy head of fact checking for the magazine. Her earlier work includes essays on books, swimming, time, and John Donne’s erotica, and magazine features such as “Through the Looking Glass” and “The Tasting-Menu Initiative,” which was recognized with a best-food-coverage award from the James Beard Foundation, in 2016. Kormann’s writing has also appeared in Harper’s, Porter, NPR Music, and VQR, and has been noted by the Best American Series, in its “Science and Nature Writing” and “Travel Writing” collections. She has received an Abe Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, a Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism, and a fellowship from New York University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
All Work
- News Desk
The Pure Spirit of Greta Thunberg is the Perfect Antidote to Donald Trump
She is committed to the foremost emergency of our time, to the science behind it, and to the people who are working every day to try to rapidly change our energy systems and consumption patterns.
December 13, 2019
- Video Dept.
David Attenborough on the Variety and Resiliency of Nature
A new short film features the naturalist who, perhaps more than anyone else alive, has taught people how to see life on Earth, in all its fragility and magnificence.
November 21, 2019
- Annals of Technology
The Promise of Mr. Trash Wheel
How Baltimore Harbor’s beloved trash collector inspired a global effort.
November 6, 2019
- News Desk
How Oceans Rise and Die on a Warming Planet
The latest addition to a dire series of reports is the first to comprehensively tie together ocean acidification, glacial collapse, and sea-level rise.
September 26, 2019
- Dispatch
New York’s Original Teen-Age Climate Striker Welcomes a Global Movement
For the past forty Fridays, Alexandria Villaseñor has kept a lonely climate vigil. This week, the fourteen-year-old had company.
September 20, 2019
- News Desk
Where Does All the Plastic Go?
Roughly one per cent of all the plastic that has ever gone into the ocean is floating on its surface. What happened to the rest of it?
September 16, 2019
- Dispatch
The Battle for a Paycheck in Kentucky Coal Country
A coalition of miners, their families, and labor activists encamped beside a train loaded with a million dollars’ worth of coal, pledging not to move until the miners get the wages they are due.
September 9, 2019
- Daily Comment
The Trump Administration Finds a New Target: Endangered Species
Changes to the 1973 Endangered Species Act were overdue. But weakening its protections for wildlife was the last thing that needed to happen.
August 16, 2019
- News Desk
Deforestation, Agriculture, and Diet Are Fuelling the Climate Crisis
An urgent new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlights how deforestation, unsustainable agriculture, and food systems are contributing to global greenhouse emissions.
August 8, 2019
- Dispatch
The Changing Climate Inside the World’s Largest Bat Colony
The migration patterns of the Bracken Cave bats are changing, adapting to the rapid rate of warming, but experts say these adaptations won’t be enough to counter the effects of climate change.
August 5, 2019
