Perspectives: What will change over the next 20 years in what we know about Earth, space exploration, space/time theories that might change how we perceive ourselves or the planet, and how we teach our students?

Meyers: I believe that this green thing is real this time. I remember it in the 60’s and 70’s, but this time I think it might be real. It’s a value that this generation is going to grow up with. We’re major consumers, but I think that’s going to change, so we’ll see what it does. I think that there will be discoveries around better energy. I personally believe that these discoveries have already been made, we’ve just not utilized them enough to make them cheap enough for us to use.

Bonewald: Technologies are being suppressed, I think …

Meyers: Yes. If this desire for green continues, and the entrepreneurs get involved and start making some of the technologies cheaper, we could see some major changes in energy. Even the oil producing countries see this happening, so I think it could be a global change. The technology is there if we could just make it cheaper to use.

Bonewald: Climate change is documented scientifically. If you go into any of the science journals, they consistently show an increase in water temperature and an increase in ocean levels. That will have dramatic consequences on our climate, on where crops are grown, where they can’t be grown. There’s a potential for us to have migrations of populations from one area to another. What do we have, 9 billion people on this planet? When there’s a catastrophe now, huge numbers of people are going to be affected. This is documented – it’s not speculation. The data is not speculation. And I think our next generation is going to have to deal with the consequences.

Witte: Do you think the culture that figures this out wins in the 21st century?

Meyers: Absolutely.

Bonewald: I do.

Truman: Whoever that culture is, they win.

Perspectives: How does the United States become that culture? How do we make sure that it’s us?

Meyers: There are a lot of factors that play into our ecosystem. Primarily now, it’s where the government chooses to send tax dollars. To what research? Do the research dollars to do it exist? Do we have the ability to open the incentives to work on these technologies?

Witte: So who helps China move off of coal? Does the culture that moves China off of coal win?

Truman: Oh, yeah.

Meyers: Yeah.

Bonewald: The whole world wins.

Meyers: The interesting thing about it is, we are all presuming there’s a revolution that’s coming in life sciences, and I believe it’s a huge revolution. If we can make our bodies generate our own drugs, we’re in good shape. I actually think the physics is there for the energy problem if we’d just go after it, versus life sciences, which is a longer process of really trying to understand the things that happen in the body. But I think the science is there to actually fix the energy issue. You mentioned space exploration. If they want to attempt to get somebody to Mars, it will take an energy solution. Maybe (space exploration) is where we find an energy solution.

Bonewald: I’ve always been disappointed with our space exploration. I would have thought by now we would have been on the moon or elsewhere. I mean, I grew up with Star Trek!

Meyers: Yeah, but you know, there’s no real commercial reason to be in space.

Bonewald: That’s the problem

Meyers: And it’s expensive

Bonewald: There’s a cost versus benefit problem.

Perspectives: In closing, what do you think of our conversation? Did we make progress today?

Bonewald: We had fun!

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