“This is either the best time to publish a book like this, because people need some hope,” Biello told me, “or it’s the absolute worst time, because there’s just no way to escape the black hole that is Trump.”

Last month, we talked about what Biello found in that unnatural world to come—and how Trump, at least in the short term, could shake things up. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

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Robinson Meyer: There’s a mix of optimism and realism in the book that seems quite familiar, and familiar especially to covering climate change—an excitement about the technologies that are coming online mixed with a clear-eyedness about how things have gone so far. How are you feeling after the events of November 8, 2016? Do you tend to think that, since this is a technological problem, technological progress is the main deciding factor in solving it?

David Biello: I guess the easiest way to put it is that I’m an optimist on the technology side of things, and a bit of a pessimist on the human side of things.

The working title of this book when I started it was Human Nature, and I really think that’s where the real challenges like. This most recent election is just more proof of that. We have—as they used to say in the ’70s TV show—we have the technology, we just don’t have the will to use it. And over and over again, we seem to take two steps forward and then take a giant leap back.

I’ve been writing about climate change since the end of the 20th century. I’ve kind of seen this before. Certainly in 2000, it was a very similar moment where, while the Kyoto Protocol had been rejected by the U.S. Senate, the possibilities of Al Gore as president seemed to offer one possible future; while the possibility of George W. Bush as president seemed to offer another—even though, at the time, Bush campaigned as someone who was going to do something about climate change. It was only after, after he got into office, that he repudiated all of that.

And then, of course, we’re coming out of eight years of the Obama administration, which probably hasn’t gotten as much credit as it deserves for action on climate change. Whether it’s clean energy installed or the Paris Agreement—you name it—they’ve been trying to do the best they can, given the limitations of a hostile Congress and all the rest of it.

That probably would’ve continued under a Hillary Clinton administration, but instead we’re going to get Trump. And while it’s almost entirely unclear what Trump himself actually believes—he’s been on both sides of the issue, and the only thing that’s consistent about him is his inconsistency—the kind of folks that he’s relying on or appointing are certainly hostile to action on climate change. And that doesn’t bode well.

That said, from a technology standpoint, there are trends you can’t fight. Natural gas is cheap, so it’s going to continue to be burned more than coal, at least in the United States. Solar power is getting cheaper, and, hey, guess what, conservatives—including Tea Partiers—love it, because it gives them freedom from their electric utility. These are things that even a Trump presidency can’t change.