Wen Stephenson + Roy Scranton

If we are doomed no matter what, do our decisions matter? In this program, two self-proclaimed “bad Buddhists” try to answer the question of how to lose less badly and live ethically in the no-win situation of catastrophic climate change.

Wen Stephenson, author of What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other, wrote in a recent essay for The Baffler: “[Climate] doomists are right that it’s a no-win situation. [And yet] even at this late date, some versions of ‘losing’ could look far worse than others. We can still lose less badly!”

Echoing this sentiment, Roy Scranton, author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene, wrote in a recent tweet:

“If we are not careful, we will waste our energy trying to convince zealots, arguing over who is to blame, attacking our allies, and preaching to the choir, and the seas will rise all the same. Is this the best use of what little time we have? Or can we do something different?”

Look into the abyss with Scranton and Stephenson as they try make ethical sense of our collective catastrophe.

About the Speakers

Wen Stephenson is a frequent contributor to The Nation and the author of What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Climate Justice. An English PhD dropout from the University of Chicago, he spent many years in mainstream media as an editor/producer at The Atlantic, PBS Frontline, The Boston Globe, and NPR’s On Point, and his essays and reporting on politics and culture have appeared in many publications, including The Atlantic, the Globe, The New York Times, Slate, The Baffler, AGNI, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.

Roy Scranton is the author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization, the novel War Porn, and We’re Doomed. Now What? Essays on War and Climate Change. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Nation, and elsewhere. He holds an MA from the New School for Social Research and PhD in English from Princeton, and has been awarded a Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities and a Lannan Literary Fellowship, among other honors. He teaches at the University of Notre Dame.