Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

It’s an age-old story: University President gets invited to an Earth and Planetary Sciences brunch to discuss sustainability research. He goes so he can tweet about it and hopefully get those Divest kids off his lawn. It’ll be over by noon, and then he can go back to burping cows with the Harvard Management Company. But all of us with an email account know that’s not how yesterday went. 

Let’s just say that, a few grapefruit mimosas in, things got a little out of hand. I don’t remember much, but I woke up in bed this morning next to a solar panel. I thought that would be it. My electrifying night of alternative energy experimentation would be behind me after I took the windmill off Mass Hall and poured the algae bioreactor out of my bathtub… but then I checked my inbox.

Now we’ve all done some crazy things, right? I mean, I have the HUHS receipts from Mt. Auburn to prove it for you twerps! I could have peed into that big hole in the Yard or turned up at the Harvard Square Hotel quarantine wing! All I did instead was send out one tiny mass email strongly suggesting that Harvard will divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry. What a crazy story!

 But seriously, “We must act now as an institution to address this crisis on as many fronts as we have at our disposal”? Does that really sound like your old pal Larry? You know my classic catchphrase is “the endowment should not be used as an instrument of social policy.”

Anyway, I'm glad that we can all just have a good laugh about this. In a few weeks you’ll be saying “Remember that time when Larry Bacow accidentally said Harvard was divesting from fossil fuels? Yeah, that was really funny and a skillfully made work of satire, but I personally believe it is far more effective for Harvard to fight climate change through teaching and research.” 

And just in case that doesn’t happen, I’m retroactively proclaiming September 9, 2021 to be university-wide opposite day! No backsies.

All the best,

Larry