Nov. 9, 2016

I, along with you, woke this morning to a surprising outcome in yesterday’s national election. This culminates a particularly rancorous and intense campaign season, in which the rhetoric was more heated than I have ever seen. While it’s a relief to be finished with the election, we are left with a split result, if the early returns hold, in which the popular vote went to the losing candidate in the electoral college.

We face this morning the task of trying to make sense of what these surprising results will mean for the environment and our society. There remains a lot of uncertainty about the specific actions and policies we will see implemented over the coming months and years. To me, the result suggests a need to redouble our efforts at advancing knowledge of environmental and sustainability challenges and, more importantly, communicating and engaging even more effectively with broad constituencies in the search for and implementation of effective and sustainable solutions. Our work is more important than ever!

We remain committed to moving forward as a community, working together, supporting each other, and valuing our different perspectives and experiences in the work that we do. There was a lot of negativity during this election that affected many of us on a personal level. Please take advantage of every opportunity over the coming weeks and months to support and understand each other in the excellent work in which we are all engaged, starting with the opportunity this afternoon (Nov. 9) to meet in 1046 from 12-2 just to be in community.