Climate Therapy, Christ, and Jia Tolentino

Illustration by Shuhua Xiong, from The New Yorker.

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Kevin LaTorre, a poet and writer living with his family in North Carolina. His work has appeared in The Blotter, Echo Literary Magazine, Walter Magazine, Ad Fontes, and the Front Porch Republic. He writes about poetry, Christianity, and literature at

A Stylist Submits

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I asked Kevin to pick one text, idea, person, encounter that he thought captured something about where things are today, and his choice was What to Do with Climate Emotions, by Jia Tolentino, in the New Yorker.

Kevin also suggested we have a number of other essays present in the background of our conversation about climate change, catastrophism, pro- and anti-natalism, Tolentino, environmentalism, Christianity, etc. His notes on the background reading:

• "Is Abortion Sacred?" by Tolentino in TNY: This 2022 piece discusses the birth of children with a similar ecological pessimism as "Climate Emotions" (arguably to a stronger extent, and again in religious/Christian terms)

• "Ha ha! Ha ha!" by Lauren Oyler in The London Review of Books: the premier takedown of Tolentino in polite literary circles - the piece is itself questionable and deeply rude but charges Tolentino as one of the "hysterical critics" who makes everything about her and her own "shoddy mode of [narcissistic] thinking" (I don't know if I fully agree, but the self-centeredness charge is interesting for discussing "Climate Emotions" and how Tolentino seemingly echoes her sources)

• Your [i.e. my] piece on The New Yorker: the idea that The New Yorker must "artfully neutralize the cognitive dissonance of liberals" can help us describe Tolentino's development as the aspirational female writer of the 2010s (from Hairpin and Jezebel to TNY staff writer in 2016, fortuitous for her career but possibly at the cost of her teeth and devilish humor?)

• "Is It OK to Have a Child?" by Meehan Crist in The London Review of Books: defines pretty well the intellectuals' ecological anti-natalism/pessimism towards birth that Tolentino very much flirts with

• Ecological anti-natalism as a philosophy present in environmental activism: there's a long history of this pretty anti-human belief system, and its current iteration that very much simulates the Christian concept of original sin (again, something Tolentino seems to accord with given her evangelical background)