Episode
George Saunders goes inside the mind of a climate denier: Imagine series
- Podcast
- Zero: The Climate Race
- Published
- Jan 29, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2602
- Processing state
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Summary
What is the best way to tell a climate story? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi speaks with Booker Prize-winning novelist George Saunders. His new novel Vigil is an exploration of guilt, told on the deathbed of an oil executive haunted by ghosts. Rathi asks Saunders what he learned about climate change, his thoughts on whether AI complements or compromises human creativity, and why literature still matters in the era of TikTok. Explore further: In ‘Vigil,’ George Saunders Asks: Can An Oil CEO Repent? — Bloomberg The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable — Amitav Ghosh Other episodes in the Imagine series: Building Monuments to the End of Oil — Kuwaiti artist Monira Al Qadiri Abundance or Adequacy? Search for Better Climate Solutions — Sci-fi bestseller Kim Stanley Robinson Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green . Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to Gautam Naik, Sommer Saadi, Mohsis Andam, Sharon Chen and Laura Millan. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.