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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
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"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.
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"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.
419 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 4, 2025
118 people are currently reading
8539 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Kolbert
35 books2,307 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 - 30 of 52 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!
February 7, 2026
Elizabeth Kolbert is such a fantastic writer, and when Life on a Little-Known Planet: Dispatches from a Changing World was available on NetGalley, I jumped on it. Thanks to Crown for the review copy! This book is a collection of Kolbert’s essays about the natural world and especially climate change. They showcase Kolbert’s talents but, more importantly, serve as testimony to the anthropogenic era of our planet. Oddly enough, I think this collection might be more relevant a hundred years from now than today.
The main drawback, you see, is that most of these pieces are … old. Like a decade-plus for some of them. Kolbert helpfully attaches tiny addenda at the end of the pieces, giving us a tiny update on the status of whatever slow-motion disaster she was writing about (spoiler alert: it’s not good). Yet that feels insufficient. The essays about the COP meetings and the Paris Agreement in particular have, uh, not aged well….
Don’t get me wrong: obviously there is still value in Kolbert’s writing—heck, how many of my book reviews on this site have aged well in the eighteen years I’ve been writing them?? There is value in a retrospective collection like this. But I wish Kolbert had, say, written some new pieces that she could pair with some of the old ones as sequels. Alas.
It took me a while to read this collection, for I kept being struck by a deep and abiding sadness. It’s not quite doomerism—the optimist within me, whom I have yet to snuff out despite my best efforts, actually believes we will avert the worst of catastrophic climate change consequences. Nevertheless, these essays put a very fine point on how these consequences are already occurring and, indeed, have been occurring for years. Our opportunities to avert crises are slipping through our fingers while our politicians keep building pipelines.
Nevertheless, that mounting sense of resentment and anger isn’t Kolbert’s responsibility—if anything, it’s a sign of how poignant her writing is. I think this book is best as a gift to a less climate-aware person in your life, someone whose insulation from these issues means they don’t quite understand just what’s going on. I think for many of us climate change is a buzzword, something we reference to explain away extreme weather events or check for political polarization. What Life on a Little-Known Planet does best is ground this issue in very real, human, and local concerns. From beekeepers to city planners, Kolbert’s interviewees are, for the most part, ordinary people doing ordinary jobs that are just made harder by climate change.
So while I can’t give this book a full-throated recommendation, simply for its anachronistic qualities, I will certainly provide a conditional one, alongside a resounding endorsement of Kolbert’s skill and passion as a writer.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.
The main drawback, you see, is that most of these pieces are … old. Like a decade-plus for some of them. Kolbert helpfully attaches tiny addenda at the end of the pieces, giving us a tiny update on the status of whatever slow-motion disaster she was writing about (spoiler alert: it’s not good). Yet that feels insufficient. The essays about the COP meetings and the Paris Agreement in particular have, uh, not aged well….
Don’t get me wrong: obviously there is still value in Kolbert’s writing—heck, how many of my book reviews on this site have aged well in the eighteen years I’ve been writing them?? There is value in a retrospective collection like this. But I wish Kolbert had, say, written some new pieces that she could pair with some of the old ones as sequels. Alas.
It took me a while to read this collection, for I kept being struck by a deep and abiding sadness. It’s not quite doomerism—the optimist within me, whom I have yet to snuff out despite my best efforts, actually believes we will avert the worst of catastrophic climate change consequences. Nevertheless, these essays put a very fine point on how these consequences are already occurring and, indeed, have been occurring for years. Our opportunities to avert crises are slipping through our fingers while our politicians keep building pipelines.
Nevertheless, that mounting sense of resentment and anger isn’t Kolbert’s responsibility—if anything, it’s a sign of how poignant her writing is. I think this book is best as a gift to a less climate-aware person in your life, someone whose insulation from these issues means they don’t quite understand just what’s going on. I think for many of us climate change is a buzzword, something we reference to explain away extreme weather events or check for political polarization. What Life on a Little-Known Planet does best is ground this issue in very real, human, and local concerns. From beekeepers to city planners, Kolbert’s interviewees are, for the most part, ordinary people doing ordinary jobs that are just made harder by climate change.
So while I can’t give this book a full-throated recommendation, simply for its anachronistic qualities, I will certainly provide a conditional one, alongside a resounding endorsement of Kolbert’s skill and passion as a writer.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.
February 1, 2026
Realistic albeit optimistic review of our current environmental circumstances (the 6th greatest extinction) through a lens of insect and sea life (from pH shift down in the oceans) population decline, profiles of innovators (whale communication with AI, creating carbon negative communities (Samso, Norway) and carbon recapturing technologies, trying to recover healthy ecosystems (reintroducing larger herbivores into the environment, dire straights of water in the southwester US (they profile a dying Lake Powell but could easily profile our own Rio Grande) and the oceans intrusion of Florida (didn't realize that a vast majority of the coast is made up of porous underlying limestone that will ultimately degrade the property foundations of all people who live there)). Enjoyed the analysis of environmental degradation through 'poop' DNA and the fight to save a dying language through the Eyak people and their elders. Book is a good balance between alarm and ingenuity.
Life on a Little-Known Planet is a 2025 essay collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert, compiling her key New Yorker pieces on climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental threats. The book highlights humanity's limited understanding of Earth amid rapid ecological shifts, drawing from her reporting over two decades.
Introduction Overview: Kolbert's introduction frames Earth as a "little-known planet," echoing biologist E.O. Wilson's sentiment that despite vast exploration elsewhere, we barely comprehend our own biosphere. She emphasizes living in an "extraordinary time" of unprecedented change, with CO₂ levels higher than in 3.5 million years, risking sea levels 60 feet above current highs. This sets up the collection's global dispatches on scientists, conservationists, and vanishing species.
Key Themes
1) Urgent environmental crises, from melting Greenland ice to insect declines, underscoring threats grown more severe since her early work.
2) Profiles of innovators, like whale-communication researchers and the "father of global warming," blending hope with alarm.
3) Calls for deeper planetary awareness to counter biodiversity loss and foster protection efforts.
"Creatures Great and Small" forms the first section of Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet, contrasting massive and tiny species to illustrate biodiversity loss and human impacts. This part draws from her New Yorker reporting on giants like whales and elephants alongside microscopic life, emphasizing how both scales reveal Earth's fragility.
Section Focus:
Kolbert profiles researchers studying colossal creatures, such as those decoding whale songs or tracking elephant migrations disrupted by climate and poaching. She parallels these with small organisms, like declining insects and coral polyps, showing interconnected threats across sizes.
Core Message:
The chapter underscores E.O. Wilson's view of Earth as poorly understood, urging protection for all life forms amid accelerating extinctions, from ocean behemoths to soil microbes. It blends field dispatches with warnings of a "sixth extinction" driven by human activity
Entomologists study insects, blending fieldwork, lab analysis, and applied research to understand their biology, ecology, and impacts on humans and environments. Their daily life varies by specialization—such as agriculture, medicine, or forensics—but centers on observation, data collection, and problem-solving for pest control or conservation.
Typical Responsibilities
Daily tasks include monitoring insect populations in fields or labs, collecting samples with nets or traps, and analyzing behaviors under microscopes. They design experiments to test insecticides, track life cycles, or assess ecosystem roles, then document findings in reports or journals.
Work Environments:
Professionals split time between outdoor sites like farms and forests for sampling, and indoor labs for dissections or genetic studies. Academic entomologists add teaching, grant writing, and student mentoring, while industry roles focus on crop protection or public health strategies.
Specializations:
1) Agricultural: Develop pest management for crops, advising farmers on sustainable methods.
2) Medical: Research disease vectors like mosquitoes to prevent outbreaks.
3) Forensic: Analyze insects on remains to aid criminal investigations.
Life of an Entomologist" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet that profiles the demanding work of insect researchers amid global declines in bug populations. Kolbert shadows scientists like those tracking vanishing species, revealing how their fieldwork exposes broader biodiversity crises driven by climate change and habitat loss.
Chapter Focus:
The narrative follows entomologists netting specimens in remote forests, pinning insects in labs, and analyzing data on plummeting numbers, such as 75% drops in flying insect biomass over decades. It highlights their passion for overlooked creatures while underscoring threats like pesticides and warming temperatures that complicate their studies.
Key Insights
Kolbert uses these profiles to contrast the intricacy of insect life cycles with humanity's ignorance, echoing the book's theme of Earth as a "little-known planet." Entomologists emerge as crucial sentinels, advocating for conservation amid an insect apocalypse that ripples through food chains
an insect apocalypse that ripples through food chains.
The chapter on Lake Powell: "The Lost Canyon Under Lake Powell," exploring how prolonged drought is shrinking this massive reservoir and exposing a submerged Eden. Kolbert joins explorers like Ken Balken to navigate the receding waters, revealing drowned canyons, reemerging cottonwoods, and "bathtub rings" of mineral stains that mark the lake's dramatic decline.
Environmental Impacts:
As water levels drop—down over 100 feet in recent years—hidden ecosystems revive, with rapids reforming and wildlife returning to what was once Glen Canyon, flooded in the 1960s for the reservoir. Yet this uncovers the lake's ecological toll: it smothered diverse habitats, altered the Colorado River's flow into the Grand Canyon, and contributed to native fish extinctions like the pike minnow.
Broader Themes:
Kolbert contrasts the awe of rediscovery with warnings of water scarcity in the Southwest, driven by overuse, climate change, and megadroughts, urging reevaluation of such massive engineering projects. The piece fits the book's motif of a "little-known planet," highlighting how human alterations reveal—and threaten—Earth's hidden wonders.
"Island in the Wind" is a chapter profiling Samsø, a small Danish island that achieved carbon neutrality through wind power and community-led renewables. Kolbert examines how locals transitioned from oil dependency to generating surplus clean energy, serving as a model amid global climate threats.
Key Strategies:
Residents installed over 10 wind turbines and biomass plants, cutting emissions by 140% below 1990 levels while boosting the economy via energy exports. The chapter details grassroots efforts, including farmer investments and district heating from straw, contrasting with fossil fuel reliance elsewhere.
Broader Lessons:
Kolbert highlights scalability challenges but praises Samsø's success in fostering buy-in through education and shared benefits, urging similar local innovations worldwide. It embodies the book's call to better know and protect our changing planet.
"The Siege of Miami" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet, adapted from her 2015 New Yorker article on South Florida's vulnerability to sea-level rise. Kolbert documents "sunny day flooding" in Miami Beach, where high tides inundate streets despite clear skies, due to porous limestone bedrock allowing seawater intrusion.
Key Observations:
She tours with geologist Harold Wanless, witnessing submerged lawns, floating trash bins, and residents mistaking saltwater surges for broken mains. Officials elevate roads and install pumps, but experts warn of inevitable retreat as groundwater rises, threatening billions in real estate.
Warning for the Future:
Kolbert portrays Miami as a frontline for climate impacts, with accelerating floods signaling a "disaster scenario" for coastal cities worldwide, where adaptation like sealing limestone proves futile long-term.
"Testing the Waters" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet that delves into ocean acidification and its threats to marine life, building on her Sixth Extinction reporting. Kolbert visits sites like Castello Aragonese off Italy, where natural CO₂ vents mimic future acidified oceans, showing barren seafloors near vents where shells dissolve.
Scientific Insights:
She describes experiments on sea urchins and pteropods with dissolving shells in lab tanks, linking rising atmospheric CO₂ to pH drops that hinder calcification for corals and shellfish. Kolbert contrasts vibrant control zones with lifeless acidified areas, underscoring risks to food webs and fisheries.
Implications:
The chapter warns of cascading extinctions, from plankton to fish stocks, emphasizing urgency for emissions cuts as adaptation limits loom. It ties to the book's theme of unrecognized planetary changes.
"A New Leaf" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet focusing on efforts to combat plant extinction and restore ecosystems amid climate change. Kolbert profiles botanists racing to collect and preserve rare seeds in seed banks, highlighting the irony of "rewilding" as species vanish faster than ever.
Chapter Highlights:
She visits seed vaults and restoration projects where scientists propagate endangered plants like the American chestnut, genetically engineered against blight. The narrative explores de-extinction debates and controlled burns to revive native flora threatened by invasives and warming.
Central Theme:
Kolbert questions if these interventions can outpace the sixth extinction, portraying a "new leaf" as both literal renewal and a fragile hope for biodiversity on our understudied planet.
"Going Negative" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet examining carbon removal efforts like direct air capture (DAC) and ocean alkalinity enhancement to combat climate change. Kolbert profiles experimental projects testing negative emissions technologies, questioning their scalability amid urgent CO₂ reduction needs.
Chapter Focus:
She visits facilities like Climeworks' Icelandic plant, which pulls CO₂ from air and mineralizes it underground, achieving "negative" emissions by removing more than produced. Kolbert contrasts high costs ($600/tonne) with potential, noting mineralization mimics natural rock weathering.
Challenges Highlighted
The narrative warns of overreliance on unproven tech as emissions rise, with ocean experiments adding minerals to boost CO₂ absorption despite ecological risks. It reinforces the book's theme: humanity must grasp planetary limits before geoengineering gambles.
"Recall of the Wild" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet, adapted from her 2012 New Yorker article on rewilding experiments in the Netherlands' Oostvaardersplassen reserve. Kolbert explores efforts to recreate Paleolithic ecosystems by reintroducing large herbivores like Konik horses, Highland cattle, and red deer to mimic extinct megafauna impacts.
Rewilding Approach:
Managers Frans Vera and others advocate "hands-off" policies, allowing natural grazing to shape grasslands, preventing woody succession and fostering biodiversity akin to pre-human Europe. Kolbert observes thriving herds but notes controversies over winter starvation, prompting emergency culling.
Debates and Lessons:
The chapter questions rewilding's ethics and feasibility, balancing restoration promise against animal welfare, while highlighting humanity's role in "recalling" lost wildness on a altered planet.
"All We Can Save" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert’s Life on a Little‑Known Planet that looks at people on the front lines of climate and biodiversity work who are trying to protect what is still recoverable, rather than what has already been lost. It functions as one of the book’s more hopeful pieces, emphasizing practical conservation, community action, and technological innovation as ways to preserve remaining ecosystems and species.
"The Weight of the World" serves as the concluding chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet, synthesizing two decades of reporting on humanity's profound ecological footprint. Kolbert reflects on the cumulative "weight" of human activity—population growth, consumption, and emissions—driving the sixth extinction and climate instability, while urging deeper planetary stewardship.
Core Reflections:
She revisits E.O. Wilson's thesis that Earth remains "little-known," contrasting space exploration with ignored biodiversity losses like insect collapses and ice melt. Kolbert weighs despair against agency, profiling resilient scientists and communities adapting amid irreversible shifts.
Final Call:
The chapter advocates radical awareness and action at root levels, echoing the book's motif: understanding our home's fragility is the first step to lighter treading.
"Mr. Green: Environmentalism's Most Optimistic Guru" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet profiling David "Mr. Green" Gruber, a charismatic marine biologist using AI to decode whale communication via Project CETI. Kolbert accompanies Gruber diving off Dominica to record sperm whale codas—complex click patterns suggesting dialects and context-specific "conversations."
Chapter Highlights:
Gruber deploys drones, hydrophones, and machine learning to analyze coda rhythms, tempos, and rubato, revealing phonetic structures akin to language. His infectious optimism envisions interspecies dialogue reshaping conservation, despite skeptics questioning if codas encode true syntax.
Broader Message:
Kolbert contrasts Gruber's techno-hope with planetary crises, portraying him as environmentalism's forward-thinker betting on tech to bridge human-nonhuman gaps amid biodiversity loss.
"Guru of Doo Doo" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet profiling a scatologist or waste researcher studying animal feces to track biodiversity, health, and environmental DNA (eDNA) amid species declines. Kolbert follows the scientist through forests and labs, where dung samples reveal hidden mammal populations, diets, antibiotic resistance, and stress hormones undetectable by other means.
Chapter Focus:
The narrative details sifting steaming piles for undigested seeds, parasite eggs, and DNA barcodes, transforming "doo doo" into data for conservation—from tiger ranges to insect pollinator crashes. Kolbert highlights how non-invasive scat analysis scales globally via camera traps and AI, offering hope for monitoring our "little-known" planet's wildlife.
Key Insights:
This quirky profile underscores overlooked science saving species indirectly, blending humor with urgency as human pressures shrink habitats, making every stool sample a vital clue.
"The Race to Save Eyak" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet recounting her poignant interview with Marie Smith Jones, the last fluent speaker of the Eyak language from Alaska's Indigenous Eyak people. Kolbert documents the desperate efforts to preserve this ancient tongue—once spoken by Cordova's coastal tribes—through recordings, dictionaries, and linguistic apprenticeships before its inevitable extinction with Marie's death in 2008.
Preservation Efforts:
Marie, a fierce elder and environmental activist, taught select students daily grammar, stories, and songs, racing against her age and the language's complexity (no written form, intricate verb structures). Kolbert captures sessions where Marie conjures lost words for salmon runs and glaciers, tying linguistic loss to cultural erasure amid climate threats to native lands.
Broader Significance:
The chapter parallels biological extinctions, framing Eyak's demise as part of humanity's shrinking knowledge of Earth's diverse "voices"—human and nonhuman—urging documentation before silence engulfs unique worldviews.
Life on a Little-Known Planet is a 2025 essay collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert, compiling her key New Yorker pieces on climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental threats. The book highlights humanity's limited understanding of Earth amid rapid ecological shifts, drawing from her reporting over two decades.
Introduction Overview: Kolbert's introduction frames Earth as a "little-known planet," echoing biologist E.O. Wilson's sentiment that despite vast exploration elsewhere, we barely comprehend our own biosphere. She emphasizes living in an "extraordinary time" of unprecedented change, with CO₂ levels higher than in 3.5 million years, risking sea levels 60 feet above current highs. This sets up the collection's global dispatches on scientists, conservationists, and vanishing species.
Key Themes
1) Urgent environmental crises, from melting Greenland ice to insect declines, underscoring threats grown more severe since her early work.
2) Profiles of innovators, like whale-communication researchers and the "father of global warming," blending hope with alarm.
3) Calls for deeper planetary awareness to counter biodiversity loss and foster protection efforts.
"Creatures Great and Small" forms the first section of Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet, contrasting massive and tiny species to illustrate biodiversity loss and human impacts. This part draws from her New Yorker reporting on giants like whales and elephants alongside microscopic life, emphasizing how both scales reveal Earth's fragility.
Section Focus:
Kolbert profiles researchers studying colossal creatures, such as those decoding whale songs or tracking elephant migrations disrupted by climate and poaching. She parallels these with small organisms, like declining insects and coral polyps, showing interconnected threats across sizes.
Core Message:
The chapter underscores E.O. Wilson's view of Earth as poorly understood, urging protection for all life forms amid accelerating extinctions, from ocean behemoths to soil microbes. It blends field dispatches with warnings of a "sixth extinction" driven by human activity
Entomologists study insects, blending fieldwork, lab analysis, and applied research to understand their biology, ecology, and impacts on humans and environments. Their daily life varies by specialization—such as agriculture, medicine, or forensics—but centers on observation, data collection, and problem-solving for pest control or conservation.
Typical Responsibilities
Daily tasks include monitoring insect populations in fields or labs, collecting samples with nets or traps, and analyzing behaviors under microscopes. They design experiments to test insecticides, track life cycles, or assess ecosystem roles, then document findings in reports or journals.
Work Environments:
Professionals split time between outdoor sites like farms and forests for sampling, and indoor labs for dissections or genetic studies. Academic entomologists add teaching, grant writing, and student mentoring, while industry roles focus on crop protection or public health strategies.
Specializations:
1) Agricultural: Develop pest management for crops, advising farmers on sustainable methods.
2) Medical: Research disease vectors like mosquitoes to prevent outbreaks.
3) Forensic: Analyze insects on remains to aid criminal investigations.
Life of an Entomologist" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet that profiles the demanding work of insect researchers amid global declines in bug populations. Kolbert shadows scientists like those tracking vanishing species, revealing how their fieldwork exposes broader biodiversity crises driven by climate change and habitat loss.
Chapter Focus:
The narrative follows entomologists netting specimens in remote forests, pinning insects in labs, and analyzing data on plummeting numbers, such as 75% drops in flying insect biomass over decades. It highlights their passion for overlooked creatures while underscoring threats like pesticides and warming temperatures that complicate their studies.
Key Insights
Kolbert uses these profiles to contrast the intricacy of insect life cycles with humanity's ignorance, echoing the book's theme of Earth as a "little-known planet." Entomologists emerge as crucial sentinels, advocating for conservation amid an insect apocalypse that ripples through food chains
an insect apocalypse that ripples through food chains.
The chapter on Lake Powell: "The Lost Canyon Under Lake Powell," exploring how prolonged drought is shrinking this massive reservoir and exposing a submerged Eden. Kolbert joins explorers like Ken Balken to navigate the receding waters, revealing drowned canyons, reemerging cottonwoods, and "bathtub rings" of mineral stains that mark the lake's dramatic decline.
Environmental Impacts:
As water levels drop—down over 100 feet in recent years—hidden ecosystems revive, with rapids reforming and wildlife returning to what was once Glen Canyon, flooded in the 1960s for the reservoir. Yet this uncovers the lake's ecological toll: it smothered diverse habitats, altered the Colorado River's flow into the Grand Canyon, and contributed to native fish extinctions like the pike minnow.
Broader Themes:
Kolbert contrasts the awe of rediscovery with warnings of water scarcity in the Southwest, driven by overuse, climate change, and megadroughts, urging reevaluation of such massive engineering projects. The piece fits the book's motif of a "little-known planet," highlighting how human alterations reveal—and threaten—Earth's hidden wonders.
"Island in the Wind" is a chapter profiling Samsø, a small Danish island that achieved carbon neutrality through wind power and community-led renewables. Kolbert examines how locals transitioned from oil dependency to generating surplus clean energy, serving as a model amid global climate threats.
Key Strategies:
Residents installed over 10 wind turbines and biomass plants, cutting emissions by 140% below 1990 levels while boosting the economy via energy exports. The chapter details grassroots efforts, including farmer investments and district heating from straw, contrasting with fossil fuel reliance elsewhere.
Broader Lessons:
Kolbert highlights scalability challenges but praises Samsø's success in fostering buy-in through education and shared benefits, urging similar local innovations worldwide. It embodies the book's call to better know and protect our changing planet.
"The Siege of Miami" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet, adapted from her 2015 New Yorker article on South Florida's vulnerability to sea-level rise. Kolbert documents "sunny day flooding" in Miami Beach, where high tides inundate streets despite clear skies, due to porous limestone bedrock allowing seawater intrusion.
Key Observations:
She tours with geologist Harold Wanless, witnessing submerged lawns, floating trash bins, and residents mistaking saltwater surges for broken mains. Officials elevate roads and install pumps, but experts warn of inevitable retreat as groundwater rises, threatening billions in real estate.
Warning for the Future:
Kolbert portrays Miami as a frontline for climate impacts, with accelerating floods signaling a "disaster scenario" for coastal cities worldwide, where adaptation like sealing limestone proves futile long-term.
"Testing the Waters" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet that delves into ocean acidification and its threats to marine life, building on her Sixth Extinction reporting. Kolbert visits sites like Castello Aragonese off Italy, where natural CO₂ vents mimic future acidified oceans, showing barren seafloors near vents where shells dissolve.
Scientific Insights:
She describes experiments on sea urchins and pteropods with dissolving shells in lab tanks, linking rising atmospheric CO₂ to pH drops that hinder calcification for corals and shellfish. Kolbert contrasts vibrant control zones with lifeless acidified areas, underscoring risks to food webs and fisheries.
Implications:
The chapter warns of cascading extinctions, from plankton to fish stocks, emphasizing urgency for emissions cuts as adaptation limits loom. It ties to the book's theme of unrecognized planetary changes.
"A New Leaf" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet focusing on efforts to combat plant extinction and restore ecosystems amid climate change. Kolbert profiles botanists racing to collect and preserve rare seeds in seed banks, highlighting the irony of "rewilding" as species vanish faster than ever.
Chapter Highlights:
She visits seed vaults and restoration projects where scientists propagate endangered plants like the American chestnut, genetically engineered against blight. The narrative explores de-extinction debates and controlled burns to revive native flora threatened by invasives and warming.
Central Theme:
Kolbert questions if these interventions can outpace the sixth extinction, portraying a "new leaf" as both literal renewal and a fragile hope for biodiversity on our understudied planet.
"Going Negative" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet examining carbon removal efforts like direct air capture (DAC) and ocean alkalinity enhancement to combat climate change. Kolbert profiles experimental projects testing negative emissions technologies, questioning their scalability amid urgent CO₂ reduction needs.
Chapter Focus:
She visits facilities like Climeworks' Icelandic plant, which pulls CO₂ from air and mineralizes it underground, achieving "negative" emissions by removing more than produced. Kolbert contrasts high costs ($600/tonne) with potential, noting mineralization mimics natural rock weathering.
Challenges Highlighted
The narrative warns of overreliance on unproven tech as emissions rise, with ocean experiments adding minerals to boost CO₂ absorption despite ecological risks. It reinforces the book's theme: humanity must grasp planetary limits before geoengineering gambles.
"Recall of the Wild" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet, adapted from her 2012 New Yorker article on rewilding experiments in the Netherlands' Oostvaardersplassen reserve. Kolbert explores efforts to recreate Paleolithic ecosystems by reintroducing large herbivores like Konik horses, Highland cattle, and red deer to mimic extinct megafauna impacts.
Rewilding Approach:
Managers Frans Vera and others advocate "hands-off" policies, allowing natural grazing to shape grasslands, preventing woody succession and fostering biodiversity akin to pre-human Europe. Kolbert observes thriving herds but notes controversies over winter starvation, prompting emergency culling.
Debates and Lessons:
The chapter questions rewilding's ethics and feasibility, balancing restoration promise against animal welfare, while highlighting humanity's role in "recalling" lost wildness on a altered planet.
"All We Can Save" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert’s Life on a Little‑Known Planet that looks at people on the front lines of climate and biodiversity work who are trying to protect what is still recoverable, rather than what has already been lost. It functions as one of the book’s more hopeful pieces, emphasizing practical conservation, community action, and technological innovation as ways to preserve remaining ecosystems and species.
"The Weight of the World" serves as the concluding chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet, synthesizing two decades of reporting on humanity's profound ecological footprint. Kolbert reflects on the cumulative "weight" of human activity—population growth, consumption, and emissions—driving the sixth extinction and climate instability, while urging deeper planetary stewardship.
Core Reflections:
She revisits E.O. Wilson's thesis that Earth remains "little-known," contrasting space exploration with ignored biodiversity losses like insect collapses and ice melt. Kolbert weighs despair against agency, profiling resilient scientists and communities adapting amid irreversible shifts.
Final Call:
The chapter advocates radical awareness and action at root levels, echoing the book's motif: understanding our home's fragility is the first step to lighter treading.
"Mr. Green: Environmentalism's Most Optimistic Guru" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet profiling David "Mr. Green" Gruber, a charismatic marine biologist using AI to decode whale communication via Project CETI. Kolbert accompanies Gruber diving off Dominica to record sperm whale codas—complex click patterns suggesting dialects and context-specific "conversations."
Chapter Highlights:
Gruber deploys drones, hydrophones, and machine learning to analyze coda rhythms, tempos, and rubato, revealing phonetic structures akin to language. His infectious optimism envisions interspecies dialogue reshaping conservation, despite skeptics questioning if codas encode true syntax.
Broader Message:
Kolbert contrasts Gruber's techno-hope with planetary crises, portraying him as environmentalism's forward-thinker betting on tech to bridge human-nonhuman gaps amid biodiversity loss.
"Guru of Doo Doo" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet profiling a scatologist or waste researcher studying animal feces to track biodiversity, health, and environmental DNA (eDNA) amid species declines. Kolbert follows the scientist through forests and labs, where dung samples reveal hidden mammal populations, diets, antibiotic resistance, and stress hormones undetectable by other means.
Chapter Focus:
The narrative details sifting steaming piles for undigested seeds, parasite eggs, and DNA barcodes, transforming "doo doo" into data for conservation—from tiger ranges to insect pollinator crashes. Kolbert highlights how non-invasive scat analysis scales globally via camera traps and AI, offering hope for monitoring our "little-known" planet's wildlife.
Key Insights:
This quirky profile underscores overlooked science saving species indirectly, blending humor with urgency as human pressures shrink habitats, making every stool sample a vital clue.
"The Race to Save Eyak" is a chapter in Elizabeth Kolbert's Life on a Little-Known Planet recounting her poignant interview with Marie Smith Jones, the last fluent speaker of the Eyak language from Alaska's Indigenous Eyak people. Kolbert documents the desperate efforts to preserve this ancient tongue—once spoken by Cordova's coastal tribes—through recordings, dictionaries, and linguistic apprenticeships before its inevitable extinction with Marie's death in 2008.
Preservation Efforts:
Marie, a fierce elder and environmental activist, taught select students daily grammar, stories, and songs, racing against her age and the language's complexity (no written form, intricate verb structures). Kolbert captures sessions where Marie conjures lost words for salmon runs and glaciers, tying linguistic loss to cultural erasure amid climate threats to native lands.
Broader Significance:
The chapter parallels biological extinctions, framing Eyak's demise as part of humanity's shrinking knowledge of Earth's diverse "voices"—human and nonhuman—urging documentation before silence engulfs unique worldviews.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 2, 2026
While I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book I won on Goodreads, the author tells stories in a way that makes complex topics easy to understand and surprisingly engaging. I liked how each chapter used real-world examples and personal observations to make her points, rather than feeling dry or academic. She is a great storyteller!
December 31, 2025
This is an excellent book. The author has a way of writing that feels like you are talking to a friend. Her willingness to immerse herself into any story is a brilliant tactic and one that leads to impactful writing. Climate change is real and one person can make a difference!
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 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.
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.
February 13, 2026
Very interesting book about environmental issues relevant today, as when they were written. These curated articles take you into many areas: Whale songs, disappearing caterpillars, invasive species in Australia, the disappearance of bees, melting ice in Greenland. If applicable, the author provides current updates.
The chapter, A Song of Ice,' is recently relevant with the decision today, February 12, 2026, of the EPA's denial of the basics of climate change. I was particularly taken with the piece on Greenland, and not because of the president's current obsession with the country, but about the melting ice.
"During the Second Word War, Denmark was occupied by the Nazis, and the US built several air bases on Greenland. By the time the conflict was over, Greenlanders had seen too much of modern life, destructive or otherwise, to go back. What followed was what one Danish chronicler has described as 'a social quantum leap unmatched in depth, extent and pace anywhere in the world.'
Today Greenland has 56,000 residents, 12,000 internet connections, 55 farms, and by American standards, no trees.
One Greenlander I met, who'd recently left the island for the first time to attend a meeting in upstate New York, told me his favorite part of the trip had been the noise of the wind sighing through the leaves.
I love that sound,' he said. 'Shoosh, shoosh.'"
"People attracted to the Greenland ice sheet tend to be the type to sail up fjords or to fly single-engine planes, which is to say they enjoy danger. I am not that type of person, and yet I keep finding myself drawn back to the ice--to its beauty, to its otherworldliness, to its sheer , ungodly significance.
The ice sheet is a holdover to the last ice age, when mile-high glaciers extended not just across Greenland but over vast stretches of the Northern Hemisphere. In most places--Canada, New England, the upper Midwest, Scandinavia--the ice melted away about 10,000 years ago. In Greenland it has--so far, at least--persisted. At the top of the sheet there's airy snow, known as firn, that fell last year and the year before and the year before that. Buried beneath is snow the fell when Washington crossed the Delaware and, beneath that, snow from when Hannibal crossed the Alps. The deepest layers, which ere laid down long before recorded history, are under enormous pressure, and the firn is compressed into the ice. At the very bottom there's snow that fell before the beginning of the last ice age, a hundred and fifteen thousand years before.
The ice sheet is so big--at its center, it's two miles high--that it creates its own weather. Its mass is so great that it deforms the earth, pushing the bedrock several thousand feet into the earth's mantle. Its gravitational tug affects the distribution of the oceans."
"The problem with global warming--and the reason it continues to resist illustration, even as the streets flood and the forests die and the mussels rot on the shores--is that experience is an inadequate guide to what's going on. the climate operates on a time delay. When carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, it takes decades--in a technical sense, millennia--for the earth to equilibrate. This summer's fish kill was a product of warming that had become inevitable 20 or 30 years ago, and the warming that's being locked in today won't be fully felt until today's toddlers reach middle age. In effect, we are living in the climate of the past, but already we've determined the climate's future."
"Update: Since my visit to Greenland in 2016, the ice sheet lost an additional two and a half trillion tons of ice. Even so, mining there remains extremely challenging. At the start of 2025, there was only one active mine in the country, which--for now, at least--remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark."
Denial of what we are learning about our environment and what we are slowly losing, is dangerous to our very existence on our planet Earth. There is no Plan B planet...
The chapter, A Song of Ice,' is recently relevant with the decision today, February 12, 2026, of the EPA's denial of the basics of climate change. I was particularly taken with the piece on Greenland, and not because of the president's current obsession with the country, but about the melting ice.
"During the Second Word War, Denmark was occupied by the Nazis, and the US built several air bases on Greenland. By the time the conflict was over, Greenlanders had seen too much of modern life, destructive or otherwise, to go back. What followed was what one Danish chronicler has described as 'a social quantum leap unmatched in depth, extent and pace anywhere in the world.'
Today Greenland has 56,000 residents, 12,000 internet connections, 55 farms, and by American standards, no trees.
One Greenlander I met, who'd recently left the island for the first time to attend a meeting in upstate New York, told me his favorite part of the trip had been the noise of the wind sighing through the leaves.
I love that sound,' he said. 'Shoosh, shoosh.'"
"People attracted to the Greenland ice sheet tend to be the type to sail up fjords or to fly single-engine planes, which is to say they enjoy danger. I am not that type of person, and yet I keep finding myself drawn back to the ice--to its beauty, to its otherworldliness, to its sheer , ungodly significance.
The ice sheet is a holdover to the last ice age, when mile-high glaciers extended not just across Greenland but over vast stretches of the Northern Hemisphere. In most places--Canada, New England, the upper Midwest, Scandinavia--the ice melted away about 10,000 years ago. In Greenland it has--so far, at least--persisted. At the top of the sheet there's airy snow, known as firn, that fell last year and the year before and the year before that. Buried beneath is snow the fell when Washington crossed the Delaware and, beneath that, snow from when Hannibal crossed the Alps. The deepest layers, which ere laid down long before recorded history, are under enormous pressure, and the firn is compressed into the ice. At the very bottom there's snow that fell before the beginning of the last ice age, a hundred and fifteen thousand years before.
The ice sheet is so big--at its center, it's two miles high--that it creates its own weather. Its mass is so great that it deforms the earth, pushing the bedrock several thousand feet into the earth's mantle. Its gravitational tug affects the distribution of the oceans."
"The problem with global warming--and the reason it continues to resist illustration, even as the streets flood and the forests die and the mussels rot on the shores--is that experience is an inadequate guide to what's going on. the climate operates on a time delay. When carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, it takes decades--in a technical sense, millennia--for the earth to equilibrate. This summer's fish kill was a product of warming that had become inevitable 20 or 30 years ago, and the warming that's being locked in today won't be fully felt until today's toddlers reach middle age. In effect, we are living in the climate of the past, but already we've determined the climate's future."
"Update: Since my visit to Greenland in 2016, the ice sheet lost an additional two and a half trillion tons of ice. Even so, mining there remains extremely challenging. At the start of 2025, there was only one active mine in the country, which--for now, at least--remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark."
Denial of what we are learning about our environment and what we are slowly losing, is dangerous to our very existence on our planet Earth. There is no Plan B planet...
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.
December 28, 2025
4++
Life on a Little-known Planet is a collection of articles on a wide variety of environmental issues written by Elizabeth Kolbert over the course of 20 years. As such, which ones a reader likes best will probably vary, but I am confident that anyone with an interest in nature and the environment will find plenty of information, entertainment, and serious food for thought.
My attention was grabbed immediately by the Introduction, which talked about quolls, ferocious creatures that look a bit like spotted ferrets and are doing serious predation in Australia. Probably my favorite piece was “TESTING THE WATERS Should the Natural World Have Rights?” Should Lake Mary Jane in Florida be able to sue to prevent development from destroying nineteen hundred acres of wetlands, pine flatlands, and cypress forests? Some others I especially liked were “THE LOST CANYON Drought is Shrinking Lake Powell, Revealing a Hidden Eden”, which was highly informative and also very entertaining. Lake Powell features the Rincon Floating Restroom, which Kolbert says “had to be one of the world’s most scenic toilets.” I confess I was captivated simply by the title of one of my other favorites, “KILLING MRS TIGGLY-WINKLE New Zealand Town Tries to Rid Itself of Invasive Species”. It was a wonderful article that made me feel empathy for both sides! It seems that no one can write a book these days without including Artificial Intelligence, but “TALK TO ME Can Artificial Intelligence Allow Us to Speak to Other Species?”, about the Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI) to “talk” to whales, was certainly a creative initiative! MR. GREEN, Environmentalism’s Most Optimistic Guru and THE GURU OF DOO-DOO Profile of Sam Wasser, Who Uses DNA to Fight Elephant Poaching were fitting last articles. The first was highly enjoyable as well as informative. The second, about using feces to do detective works against poachers, among other things, made me optimistic about the use of science at the same time I was saddened by the actions of those who are ravaging wildlife. Although those were my favorites, all of the pieces had interesting topics and worthwhile information!
The only thing that could have made the book better would be some illustrations to help me envision the regions discussed.
WARNING: This is one of those books that made me keep wanting to stop frequently to share the latest tidbit or idea with my long-suffering husband, so if you share my tendencies you might want to read in a separate room. I DO plan to recommend he read it himself, though.
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley and Crown Books.
Life on a Little-known Planet is a collection of articles on a wide variety of environmental issues written by Elizabeth Kolbert over the course of 20 years. As such, which ones a reader likes best will probably vary, but I am confident that anyone with an interest in nature and the environment will find plenty of information, entertainment, and serious food for thought.
My attention was grabbed immediately by the Introduction, which talked about quolls, ferocious creatures that look a bit like spotted ferrets and are doing serious predation in Australia. Probably my favorite piece was “TESTING THE WATERS Should the Natural World Have Rights?” Should Lake Mary Jane in Florida be able to sue to prevent development from destroying nineteen hundred acres of wetlands, pine flatlands, and cypress forests? Some others I especially liked were “THE LOST CANYON Drought is Shrinking Lake Powell, Revealing a Hidden Eden”, which was highly informative and also very entertaining. Lake Powell features the Rincon Floating Restroom, which Kolbert says “had to be one of the world’s most scenic toilets.” I confess I was captivated simply by the title of one of my other favorites, “KILLING MRS TIGGLY-WINKLE New Zealand Town Tries to Rid Itself of Invasive Species”. It was a wonderful article that made me feel empathy for both sides! It seems that no one can write a book these days without including Artificial Intelligence, but “TALK TO ME Can Artificial Intelligence Allow Us to Speak to Other Species?”, about the Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI) to “talk” to whales, was certainly a creative initiative! MR. GREEN, Environmentalism’s Most Optimistic Guru and THE GURU OF DOO-DOO Profile of Sam Wasser, Who Uses DNA to Fight Elephant Poaching were fitting last articles. The first was highly enjoyable as well as informative. The second, about using feces to do detective works against poachers, among other things, made me optimistic about the use of science at the same time I was saddened by the actions of those who are ravaging wildlife. Although those were my favorites, all of the pieces had interesting topics and worthwhile information!
The only thing that could have made the book better would be some illustrations to help me envision the regions discussed.
WARNING: This is one of those books that made me keep wanting to stop frequently to share the latest tidbit or idea with my long-suffering husband, so if you share my tendencies you might want to read in a separate room. I DO plan to recommend he read it himself, though.
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley and Crown Books.
January 17, 2026
I first enjoyed Elizabeth Kohlbert's 2006 nonfiction book Field Notes of a Catastrophe. Since then she's written a Pulitzer Prize winner The Sixth Extinction, an earlier book about octopuses, and the new one I picked up at my public library, Life on a Little-Known Planet. If you like essays taken from her New York Times reporting, then you'll enjoy the book.
I started the book so inspired by its introduction and first chapter/essay about the possibility of communicating with sperm whales that I wrote a poem. I was fascinated with the chapter exploring the continuing problem of honeybee colony collapse around North America, another about an ethnologist trying to save rare caterpillars, and one about how we're trying to address the problem of quickly creating excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and then I started skimming.
I noticed that most of the essays are taken from a decade or more ago and often her updates at the end of the essay are short and not that satisfying. I'm not a fan of collected essays over stretches of time, but each essay took us to interesting parts of our planet.
Maybe this type of book that documents the environmental changes we're experiencing is too depressing of a read now in our current political climate. You could argue for this being the best time too. I was just impatient with it after getting halfway through and that's something I suffer during the dreary winter months.
Mildly recommended.
December 12, 2025
Overall Book Rating: 3.0 stars
I struggled with this book; between the current state of the world and the doomed-feeling conclusion of the book, it was hard to enjoy this book. It wasn't easy to read; the message is important; however, I have a feeling the people who most need the message won't be reading it.
This book is a collection of articles from The New Yorker that have been collected from the past few decades, with short updates after the articles. So a lot of it is pretty outdated, with the exception of the updates, which I found frustrating. Overall, a quite meh read.
Narrator Rating: 4.0 stars
The narrator was excellent for a non-fiction book, and made it a bit less blah.
Read if you're in the mood for something: adventurous, challenging, emotional, informative, reflective, sad, & medium-paced
Content Warnings
I struggled with this book; between the current state of the world and the doomed-feeling conclusion of the book, it was hard to enjoy this book. It wasn't easy to read; the message is important; however, I have a feeling the people who most need the message won't be reading it.
This book is a collection of articles from The New Yorker that have been collected from the past few decades, with short updates after the articles. So a lot of it is pretty outdated, with the exception of the updates, which I found frustrating. Overall, a quite meh read.
Narrator Rating: 4.0 stars
The narrator was excellent for a non-fiction book, and made it a bit less blah.
Read if you're in the mood for something: adventurous, challenging, emotional, informative, reflective, sad, & medium-paced
Content Warnings
December 30, 2025
Wonderfully written essays about the climate changes facing the planet and all those on it. Two small notes - I would have liked it if the "first published in..." was at the beginning of each piece, rather than at the end. It would have helped, especially when the author refers to something that happened "last month," for instance. I did appreciate the updates that appeared at the end of each piece. Also there were several points that she stressed in more than one piece, so certain things got a bit repetitious - such as the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
Overall, increased my concern for the kind of world my grandchildren will live in, and continues to make me astounded by those who deny the climate changes.
Overall, increased my concern for the kind of world my grandchildren will live in, and continues to make me astounded by those who deny the climate changes.
January 9, 2026
So good as always! Her writing always blows my mind, but for this book in particular, I found myself frequently googling images of the amazing places and landmarks she described because my imagination couldn’t keep up. This one also really piqued my curiosity in language— both in humans and animals. Her books never fail to give me new hyperfixations and remind me that my zoology minor isn’t so random after all… I eat this stuff up lol
-1 star because the essays were older (also wasn’t really in the format that I thought it was going to be in based on her other books) and some themes were a little repetitive for me. But I also think that’s just cause I’m already very familiar with climate change info so I feel like that probably wouldn’t be a problem for a wider audience
-1 star because the essays were older (also wasn’t really in the format that I thought it was going to be in based on her other books) and some themes were a little repetitive for me. But I also think that’s just cause I’m already very familiar with climate change info so I feel like that probably wouldn’t be a problem for a wider audience
January 27, 2026
This book is a collection of articles all previously published in NY Times.
Wide range of topic in science and current issues.
I thought the title is apt- even as someone who likes to read about various topics in nature, there were a lot of facts that I've encounter first time here. Like amphibians in New Zealand leap in belly flip style. Human endeavors trying to manage the nature is so chaotic, short-sighted, sometimes almost seem fresh and innovative to the degree they seem like non-sense. It's sobering to learn the reality of DAV (Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference). How we might destroy our home fully knowing....
Wide range of topic in science and current issues.
I thought the title is apt- even as someone who likes to read about various topics in nature, there were a lot of facts that I've encounter first time here. Like amphibians in New Zealand leap in belly flip style. Human endeavors trying to manage the nature is so chaotic, short-sighted, sometimes almost seem fresh and innovative to the degree they seem like non-sense. It's sobering to learn the reality of DAV (Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference). How we might destroy our home fully knowing....
December 15, 2025
A collection of articles about the world we live in. Most of the articles were originally published, sometimes quite a few years ago, in The New Yorker. Kolbert’s writing is so captivating that portions of many of the articles were still familiar to me. New Zealand’s attempts to eliminate invasive non-native mammals. The collapse of bee colonies. Lake Powell shrunken by drought. A dog trained to sniff out whale poop. At the end of the book I was left wanting more; ideally, more of the same but more recent updates.
February 9, 2026
I picked up this book after falling in love with some of Kolbert’s previous work and while it was good, it didn’t quite draw in my attention as her others had. The nature articles were great, but the ones focused on carbon emissions or current climate change outlooks were quite repetitive & out of date (by a decade or two for some of them!) Despite this, Elizabeth Kolbert is an absolutely amazing journalist, so I recommend to anyone passionate about climate change & nature.
Thank you to Crown Publishing for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.
Thank you to Crown Publishing for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.
February 12, 2026
A few articles were rather interesting, but I found a lot of this book hard to get through. It was especially difficult to find the will to continue reading when a lot of the content is rather dated. Kolbert is a great writer and managed to make me crack a smile even in the more depressing articles. I enjoyed her imagery and insights on the people she was interviewing. I appreciate that a majority of the articles had a little blurb at the end that gave updates. Perhaps if these blurbs were dispersed throughout the article and more expansive it would have been easier to get through?
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.
January 25, 2026
This collection of essays from the early 2000's to nearly the present, is both a fascinating and a hard read. It is fascinating because of the high quality of the writing and the wide range of topics all of which deal with interesting aspects of life on earth. But it is a hard read because many of the essays deal with climate change and what will happen if we don't confront it, which we seem, especially under Trump, to not be doing. There were times I had to fight off near despair.
January 28, 2026
I’d probably give this book two stars as a reading experience. It’s bleak, sometimes tiring, and depressing (not because the writing is bad, but because the subject is).
That said, it’s also the book I highlighted the most. By the end, it felt less like something I “liked” and more like something I *needed* to read. It even sent me down my own rabbit holes (I spent four hours one night at 3am reading about DACCS).
That said, it’s also the book I highlighted the most. By the end, it felt less like something I “liked” and more like something I *needed* to read. It even sent me down my own rabbit holes (I spent four hours one night at 3am reading about DACCS).
February 13, 2026
I always enjoy Kolbert’s writing and stories, however as a collection of articles mostly written tenish years ago it really would have benefited from more updates than the brief couple sentences some articles had. I realize then the book becomes a project, but it would have made for a better end product. I suppose one could get curious and look up for themselves what changed in the subsequent 10 years. In most cases it was not enough to improve the dire predictions. We’re failing to act.
December 28, 2025
Kolbert is one of the single best writers working right now. These essays are all thoughtful and funny and devastating. I do wish, though, she had been a bit more forthcoming that these were all previously published in other places and not really “new” writing. Still a truly excellent read, though. Recommended.
December 30, 2025
I was gifted a copy of this book, and while I wasn’t especially looking forward to reading it, I was pleasantly surprised. I loved all the stories Kolbert shares to get points across. Her language is also such that you can picture everything she is describing. I was entertained and appreciate that I learned so much along the way!
January 29, 2026
These are great essays. Kolbert, as always, delivers her unique narrative style (very lucid, very sober) that I love. Unfortunately, a lot of the essays in here are very outdated. Some even go as far back as 2007-2009, which, if you’re reporting on enviro/climate issues like she is, is WAY too old. She only gives a one-sentence update on SOME of these essays. I don’t think that’s acceptable.
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.
December 17, 2025
exceptionally researched and touchingly human. somehow manages to cover a plethora of topics across the globe, all carrying staggering impacts, while still conveying intimacy in each subject and person depicted.
December 21, 2025
Essays published over time gathered to make this book about climate change and energy consumption. I’ve enjoyed her other works, especially The Sixth Extinction, more. But this was still a good read.
January 31, 2026
Non fiction book about all things on earth and changes from the past. Mainly dealing with environmental issues and people making a difference or trying to.
It took a while to read because I’m ready for fiction again. It’s worth going through.
It took a while to read because I’m ready for fiction again. It’s worth going through.
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