The morning after Election Day, many of us at the Sierra Club were mourning the lost potential of what a Harris–Walz administration would have meant for environmental progress, democracy, and people’s fundamental rights and freedoms. That day, I wrote to my children, nieces, and nephews and told them to remember that even in these toughest moments—especially in these toughest moments—we can still make sure that our lives are vessels for progress. I reminded them that America—and our own family—has been through worse: slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow. I reminded them of the wisdom of my grandmother, who often said, “Pessimists are right more often, but optimists win more often. I’ll take winning.”

In that spirit, the Sierra Club is ready to lead, fight, and win the battles we know are coming. For more than a century, the organization has been one of our country’s great protectors of wilderness and wildlife, clean air and clean water, and a sustainable future with a stable climate. That will not change. The Sierra Club’s robust national network of chapters and volunteers will continue to retire coal plants, fight oil and gas projects, promote clean energy, and protect Earth’s natural wonders.

While we know the second Trump administration could be more dangerous than the first, we have the advantage of having been here before. The first time around, we managed to not only sink some of Trump’s worst environmental policies but also keep making progress. And we will do so again.

During the first Trump administration, the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program filed more than 300 lawsuits against his government. Those suits were successful in beating back many of Trump’s worst attacks on bedrock environmental protections. We have 45 lawyers ready to do it again.

We also played a critical role as a watchdog for Trump’s excesses, deploying a massive Freedom of Information Act request operation that exposed the administration’s close ties to the fossil fuel industry and cabinet officials’ petty corruption. That effort forced the resignation of disgraced EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.

The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign retired coal-fired power plants at a faster rate during Trump’s first four years than during the Obama administration. That shows we can accelerate progress even during the toughest times.

And we never stopped defending our nation’s lands and waters. When Trump tried to roll back Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monuments, we took his administration to court. When Trump eliminated Roadless Rule protections for ancient forests, we rallied the public. When Trump opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, we organized a pressure campaign against corporations and drove them away from the lease sale. We will continue our work to protect Alaska by defending the Biden–Harris administration’s ban on new drilling in the Western Arctic.

Thanks to the Biden–Harris administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, the transition to renewable sources of energy is well underway. It has brought a clean energy jobs boom and the rebirth of American manufacturing for products like solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and batteries. Many of the more than 330,000 clean energy jobs created since the IRA was enacted are located in places that voted for Trump. If the Trump administration goes after the IRA, Republican members of Congress will be faced with destroying jobs in their own districts.

While the Sierra Club and our allies stand ready to fight back, we also need to take a lesson from this election. We need to grow our movement in order to combat the extinction and climate crises—and we cannot do that without the working class.

Working people sent a clear message that they will vote their pocketbooks. It is up to us to meet the working people of this country where they are. Our movement has a lot to offer—not just in maintaining a livable planet but also in helping create well-paying jobs, improving health outcomes with cleaner air and water, and lowering energy bills. We will speak to people through community-based organizing and an emphasis on relationship building.

Keep the faith. If my grandmother were with us today, she would remind us that hope is a choice and that future generations will benefit from our embracing it.