Before The New York Times, Andy Revkin Called EG Home: Part 2

Andrew Revkin, who grew up in East Greenwich, was named staff environmental reporter for the New York Times in 1995.

Covering that beat took him around the globe as well as to the North Pole from whence he became the first New York Time’s reporter to file a story.

"Besides sailing around the world, going to the North Pole was my biggest adventure," Andy recalled. "It was a mind blowing experience."

With the the emergence of the web as a news source, Revkin’s position at the Times has also evolved and he now writes for the newspaper's Dot Earth blog. 

According to Dot Earth, its mission is “to examine efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits.” Revkin said he works hard to untangle the multiple “fire hoses of information” about the environment and climate change and mete out appropriate doses of pertinent material to keep his readers abreast of important and/or urgent matters while preventing information overload.

Revkin endeavors to maintain his objectivity, maintaining, “I am not a traditional tree hugger. I believe the earth can support 9 billion people, but not at the expense of the earth’s other residents.”

Beyond the Times

As a newly minted Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at the Academy for Applied Environmental Studies of Pace University, Revkin is working on several fronts: creating a course that coordinates instruction in science and journalism, building a world-wide network to promote communication between journalists in well-to-do and impoverished lands, and facilitating classroom discussions between teams representing the many sides of the preservation versus progress debate with the intent on teaching the participants that there are myriad perspectives to share and from which to learn.

His average day is packed with work reviewing hundreds of web-postings, synthesizing sensible items for Dot Earth, and preparing for lectures he will deliver at schools like Dartmouth College. His presentations are often coupled with visits to classes or laboratories working on addressing Environmental issues.

“I love speaking and interacting with people," he said. "The more often I am around them, the more I learn. I try to learn something new every day.” 

Revkin has attended a number of world environmental confabs in places such as Copenhagen and, more recently, Cancun where he has heard representatives of many nations talk about addressing outstanding environmental issues, but he has seen little resulting action.

He lamented, “Most nations are normally self-interested. They don’t think of how the green house gasses that they are creating affect other nations as well.”

Family life

When he’s not in the newsroom or on the road, Revkin relaxes at home in Garrison, NY,  with his wife, Lisa, a former Middle School Science Teacher, and plays the video game “Black Ops” with his sons Daniel (20) and Jack (13).

He quipped, “It (gaming) provides us with the opportunity to stay in touch, but they seriously kick my butt.”

Revkin has also honed his musical skills since picking up a guitar at the age of 17. He jams with a local band named “Uncle Wade” and has also had the thrill of playing with songwriter and environmental champion Pete Seeger on Seeger’s Hudson River Schooner “Clearwater.”

Andy has not forgotten his roots and he still has friends in East Greenwich like his fishing partners, Robert Corrente and Joe Turco.  Currently, he doesn’t have the time to come back to town to touch base with them as often as he would like. Instead, he pulls out that “plaster stuffed, glass eyed, dust covered large mouth bass” and fondly remembers good times gone by in East Greenwich.