Jeff Goodell is an American author of seven non-fiction books and a longtime contributing writer to ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
''.
Goodell's writings are known for a focus on energy and environmental issues. He is Senior Fellow at the
Atlantic Council
The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism, founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosp ...
and a 2020
Guggenheim Fellow
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...
.
Youth and education
Jeff Goodell was born in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
Th ...
. He grew up in Sunnyvale and worked briefly at Apple Computer in the early 1980s. He graduated from University of California, Berkeley, in 1984, and then helped edit ''
Zyzzyva'', a literary magazine in San Francisco. He moved to New York City and attended graduate school at Columbia University, where he received an M.F.A. in 1990.
Career
Goodell started his journalism career at ''7 Days'', a Manhattan weekly founded and edited by
Adam Moss. He covered cops, crime, AIDS, and politics. In 1990, ''7 Days'' won a National Magazine Award for General Excellence. After freelancing for a few years, Goodell became a contributing editor at
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
in 1995. Since then, he has written hundreds of pieces for the magazine, including cover stories about
climate politics, Steve Jobs, and President Barack Obama.
Goodell has published seven books, including ''Sunnyvale'' (2000) a personal memoir about growing up in
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
and the breakdown of his family; ''Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith'' (2002), about the Pennsylvania
Quecreek Mine Rescue
The Quecreek Mine rescue took place in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, when nine miners were trapped underground for over 77 hours, from July 24 to 28, 2002. All nine miners were rescued.
Accident
On July 24, eighteen coal miners at the Quecreek ...
of nine trapped coal miners in 2002 that was a
''New York Times'' Best Seller; and ''
Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future'' (2006) that the ''New York Times'' called "a compelling indictment of one of the country's biggest, most powerful and most antiquated industries...well-written, timely, and powerful".
In 2010, he published ''How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth’s Climate''
about
geoengineering
Geoengineering (also known as climate engineering or climate intervention) is the deliberate large-scale interventions in the Earth’s climate system intended to counteract human-caused climate change. The term commonly encompasses two broad cate ...
,
global warming
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...
, and
climate change mitigation
Climate change mitigation (or decarbonisation) is action to limit the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause climate change. Climate change mitigation actions include energy conservation, conserving energy and Fossil fuel phase-out, repl ...
. The book discusses ideas by
Ken Caldeira
Kenneth Caldeira (born 1960) is an American atmospheric scientist. His areas of research include ocean acidification, climate effects of trees, intentional climate modification, interactions in the global carbon cycle/climate system, and sustain ...
,
James Lovelock
James Ephraim Lovelock (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating syst ...
,
David Keith,
Raymond Pierrehumbert,
Stephen Salter
Professor Stephen Hugh Salter, (7 December 1938 – 23 February 2024) was a South African-born Scottish academic who was Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh
and inventor of the eponymous Salter's duck wav ...
, and
Lowell Wood, among others. In 2011, ''How to Cool the Planet'' won the
Grantham Prize (Award of Special Merit).
In 2017, he published ''The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World'' that describes visits to places likely to be inundated by rising sea levels. It was a ''New York Times'' Critics Top Book of 2017 and selected by the ''Washington Post'' as one of the 50 best non-fiction books of 2017.
In 2023, he published ''
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet''. The book was a ''New York Times'' bestseller and selected by NPR and ''The Economist'' as one of the best books of 2023.
As a commentator on energy and climate issues, Goodell has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, ABC, Fox News, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Awards and honors
* 2011
Grantham Prize (Award of Special Merit)
* 2012
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Pro ...
David R. Brower Award for excellence in environmental journalism
* 2020
American Meteorological Society
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is a scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance the atmosph ...
Louis J. Battan Author's Award
* 2021
Covering Climate Now Journalism Award
* 2022
New York Press Club
The New York Press Club, sometimes ''NYPC'', is a nonprofit membership organization that promotes journalism in the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area. It is unaffiliated with any government organization and abstains from ...
, "Feature: Science Medicine & Technology National" for "Deadly Climate" in ''Rolling Stone''
Fellowships
* 2016-2017 New America National Fellow
* 2020 Atlantic Council Senior Fellow
* 2020 Guggenheim Fellow
Works
Books
* ''The Cyberthief and the Samurai: The True Story of Kevin Mitnick-And the Man Who Hunted Him Down'' (1996)
* ''Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family'' (2000)
* ''Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith'' (2002)
* ''
Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future'' (2006)
* ''How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth’s Climate'' (2010)
* ''The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World'' (2017)
* ''
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet'' (2023)
Anthologies
* ''Best Business Writing 2012'' (Columbia Journalism Review Books, 2012)
* ''Best American Science Writing 2012'' (Ecco, 2012)
* ''Best American Science And Nature Writing 2022'' (Mariner, 2022)
Audiobooks
* ''The Big Melt: A Journey to Antarctica's Doomsday Glacier''
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodell, Jeff
American magazine editors
American male journalists
American sustainability advocates
American non-fiction environmental writers
Living people
Writers from Sunnyvale, California
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
Activists from California