Elizabeth Kolbert's first of two lectures will look at the ways humans are changing the world on a geological scale. In this talk, she will focus on changes to the atmosphere, changes to the chemistry of the oceans, and the rearrangement of the biosphere.

Kolbert has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999. Her original series on global warming, “The Climate of Man,” won a National Magazine Award and became the book “Field Notes from a Catastrophe.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Sixth Extinction” also originated from her environmental journalism work for The New Yorker.