It’s well known that Donald Trump wants to build a wall. Radical environmentalists in the US seem to support his plan. From their point of view, more people means more environmental destruction. You have also warned against over-population. So is Trump right?

No. We can’t stop people who are fleeing from war, famine and poverty to a better world. That's what my book The Tortilla Curtain was about. And we will see new waves of refugees again and again in the years to come. The migrant flows are due not least to global warming. Trump’s wall, as well as the barbed wire fences in Hungary and Greece, will only lead to more chaos. As far as over-population is concerned, I really see only one solution: we all have to stop having sex for the next hundred years. Who’s with me?



Has the drought in your state, California, at least led to the last skeptics starting to take climate change seriously? Or in other words, is America finally going green?

In Montecito where I live, we were called on to use 30% less water. But my neighbors’ lawns are still as green as if we were in Ireland. Some have started drilling for water on their own land so they don’t have to give up their daily swim. The super-rich will always do what they want. On the other side, the poor can’t even afford environmental protection. In crises such as in Syria or Venezuela, where the stakes are life and death, global warming suddenly becomes a very distant concern. Despite the increased environmental consciousness, I’m pessimistic.



But the climate agreement in Paris shows that real progress can be made.

But global warming is not reversible. The oceans will never get cleaner, the forests are not going to expand. I, like all environmental activists, am condemned to a life of pessimism. But ok, there is one piece of good news: in 3.5 billion years at the latest, the sun will expand and turn the earth into a piece of charcoal. It’ll be a while yet, but from that point of view there’s nothing to worry about. Not even Donald Trump. Before we get that far, another species will have taken over. Many futurologists prophesy the rise of the rat. They’ll outlive us all. During the climate conference in Paris, a newspaper asked me to write a letter to the people of the future. So I wrote: «Dear rats of the future...»



That really is pessimistic. From the deck of your house, the forest looks pretty intact.

Due to the five-year drought in California, every second tree here will die. They’ve been attacked by a parasite that was able to spread because of the dryness. There’s a massacre going on. But most Americans don’t know what they’ll be losing when the forest is no longer there. The feeling of being alone in nature is hard to describe. Not even my kids understand what I’m doing out there for hours on end.



And what is that?

It’s like when you’re writing or reading; you step outside your body. My spirit starts to wander, but my senses sharpen. I’m often asked what wild animals I meet during my excursions on the woods, to which the answer is mainly ants. Sometimes I see a fox or a coyote. The mountain lions are rarer. Yesterday I saw 20 fat cows in the woods. The farmers bring them up here in the summer and then rustle them up when it gets colder. The cows that I saw yesterday were the escapees, the fugitives, the freedom-lovers. I spent hours with them. Such moments in the woods do me good, far away from people.



You don’t seem to be a misanthrope.

I’m not. But I need this time away to keep things in balance. I’m also more productive here. Writing is my addiction now; I used to have others. Up here nothing holds me back. I write until three in the afternoon and then I head out to the woods. Once when I had been alone for weeks, I suddenly heard a car while out walking; instead of waving at the car, I hid behind some trees.



Do you love your country?

Oh, yes. But that doesn’t stop me criticizing a lot of things. I grew up in a working-class family and once had a very intimate relationship with a damaging substance. Now I teach at a university and my new book is coming out this fall. How cool is that? Writing saved my life. I have the great good fortune of living in a democracy in which I can say anything and in which I don’t have to worry that someone’s going to push me off a cliff for my words.