Serious environmentalists exhaled with relief when it became clear that Donald Trump would leave office in January. The planet could not have endured four more years of deliberate destruction of the nation’s regulatory apparatus, flanked by gleeful drilling in the Arctic, fervent opposition to environmental protection measures taken by states, and agencies staffed by every possible stripe of radical, apocalypse-loving climate denialist.

Even a hater like me agrees that the Biden administration will be much better. The president-elect recognizes that climate change is real. He speaks concretely and specifically about phasing out fossil fuels and creating good renewable energy jobs. He is making more serious plans to address climate change than any US president thus far. It’s a low bar, to be sure, but one that should occasion a victory dance from the Left. It’s clear that pressure from protest groups like the Sunrise Movement and leadership by democratic-socialist politicians and organizers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and the hundreds of thousands of activists they’ve helped inspire — have profoundly shifted the contours of what’s possible in environmental policy, giving Biden the potential to be a far better climate president than we could have imagined under either Trump or Obama.

The problem is climate activists aren’t the only ones organizing. The fossil fuel industry is, too — and with some success. As a result, Biden is considering some awful appointments and allowing some extremely shady advisers into his environmental discussions. Environmentalists have already begun protesting Biden’s icky and improper handsiness with polluters and their lackeys — and they’re right to do so.