President’s Message to SABS Making Sense of It All: Permanence Through Change

I began writing this presidential message to the members of the SABS while sitting in my room at the eclectic, historical landmark hotel, the Mission Inn, in Riverside, California. I was there in one of the most polluted parts of the country, attending an international conference on the effects of air pollution on forests. Now it may strike you a bit odd to have been writing then about the southeast from the southwest, but in fact, being removed from the local geography was perhaps the opportunity I needed to sit back and gain a new perspective on the state of our society and its scientific journal, Castanea.