Scientists Step Up

The annual Fall MRS meeting started today in Boston. Most of the sessions this afternoon that I attended weren't too interesting to me, but I stayed for the two plenary talks tonight. Both by Nobel Laureates and both talked about the need for scientists to confront global warming and our energy needs. It won't be the politicians, it won't be the movie stars, it won't even be the Al Gores of the world that will solve these problems. It will be the scientific community. Things look drastic and we truly need revolutionary ideas to confront our growing appetite for electricity. However, what we also need it a huge increase in renewable/sustainable energy research. Coming out of graduate school I really wanted to work for NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) but they were laying people off. Despite the warning bells that are sounding we continue to neglect this very important area of research. We had the Apollo Project, we had Star Wars, now it is time for Green Energy. Let's hope the politicians can at least put some resources toward this so that science can solve yet another problem. Let the politicians get the credit too, let's just get a move on solving this problem.