In his new novel What We Can Know, McEwan looks into an imagined future shaped by humanity’s response to climate change and conflict. “It’s not very difficult to transition to an electric economy and stop burning fossil fuels. Wherever we stop doing bad things, nature really pushes back.” “Remember the ‘no-go’ zone around Chernobyl?” he adds. There is a kind of inbuilt resilience to nature, if we just stop poisoning a place or screwing up a place. We just have to stop doing bad things and do good things.” What We Can Know by Ian McEwan is out now, published by Jonathan Cape.