So last night in Chicago's Grant Park, I got the chance to watch election returns with 99,999 of my best friends.

For the bulk of the evening, the crowd was glued to CNN reports on a jumbotron in the park's southeast corner.  It's great to see that president-elect Obama's first public event embraced energy efficiency---just think of how much electricity was saved with this massive TV-sharing plan...

As a non-partisan organization, NRDC does not endorse candidates, but now that Obama has been declared the winner, we can begin to look at the environmental implications of the voters' decisions. It was thrilling to hear that our "planet in peril" was one of the three problems he was focused on---and judging from the crowd response I was hardly the only one with that reaction. Intentional, or not, energy efficiency efforts will be a big part of the effort that the next administration will have to kick into high gear.

Photo by Chris Anderson