Our Planet, Our Response
The 10th annual COA Summer Institute welcomes Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning Science Writer & Journalist, in conversation with Kourtney Collum, College of the Atlantic provost, dean of faculty, and Partridge Chair of Food & Sustainable Agriculture Systems.
Few writers have done more to document the scale and complexity of environmental change than Elizabeth Kolbert. Through her reporting and books, including The Sixth Extinction, she has chronicled the forces reshaping the natural world and the consequences of human activity across ecosystems.
In conversation with Kourtney Collum, whose work explores the intersections of food systems, power, justice, and sustainability, Kolbert reflects on what it means to bear witness to these changes over time, and how scientific understanding, storytelling, and public awareness intersect in shaping our response. Together, they consider not only the scope of the challenges we face, but the choices—individual, institutional, and collective—that will determine how we respond.
Grounded in both evidence and lived systems, they examine what it means to act in a moment defined by uncertainty, urgency, and responsibility, and how a clearer understanding of the planet we inhabit can inform the choices we make in response.
The 2026 Summer Institute: Toward a More Perfect Union will mark the country’s 250th anniversary with a forward-looking series of conversations about the future of the American experiment. By late July, we anticipate that audiences will have encountered plenty of historical retrospectives and the predictable swing between overly patriotic and overly critical narratives. Our goal is different: To convene voices from across American culture—journalism, the arts, science, philanthropy, civic life, and beyond—and explore how the nation’s founding values have been, and continue to be, tested, reshaped, and reimagined. The Institute asks how these ideals can be stewarded, strengthened, and carried into the future.