Hello and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt.

Today we are bringing you another one of our Drilling Deep series in which Adam Lewinstein talks to an author about a recent book that touches on climate or politics or democracy

or some combination thereof. Today, Adam speaks with Wen Stevenson, the journalist and

activist and author of the new book, Learning to Live in the Dark, Essays in a Time of Catastrophe.

In it, Stevenson argues that the only way to confront the crises of our time is to

meet despair head on, to see it for what it is, to feel it, and to accept what it means

about where we are and where we need to go.

Over the summer, Adam spoke with Stevenson about how he processes his own climate despair.

What scholars of totalitarianism like Hannah Arendt and Albert Camus can teach us about fossil fascism

and whether a mass movement for climate action might not come together until enough people are desperate enough.

This conversation is a lot like how Stevenson describes his book.

It's about how to live into this era of climate and political and social catastrophe while holding on to our humanity.

Just a note before we get into it that this conversation does briefly discuss suicide.

If you are in crisis, please call or text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988

or contact the Crisis Text line by texting Talk, T-A-L-K to 741-741.

Here's Adam and when. As a starting point, I wanted to ask you how you're feeling about having this book out in the world, because there's a lot of you and a lot of processing in the book that is now available for everyone to see

and feel and read. Yeah, I mean, it feels some, it's strange. I mean, I've written personal essays

for a long time. And you know, it's worth it's worth noting off the top, right, that like the vast majority of this book is not about me.

There's a, there's some very personal stuff in it, of course, but, but, but, and that runs kind of as a thread through the, through the, through the essays, you know, all the way to the end.

But, but the vast, vast majority of the book is not about me.

But, you know, it's a, it's a risk, right?

It's a risk one takes as a writer if you're going to get personal.

...