GERBER LIFE GROW UP PLAN SCRIPT HOW TO

What that really says is they did something so special in the Manhattan Project, and so colossal, and so complicated, that we would all like to do something like that and like to be a part of it. You hear people saying, “We need to make a Manhattan Project of the war on terror.” You hear speeches, and Senators and Congressmen will say, “We need a Manhattan Project for energy-independence,” or say, the war on terror, another example.

GERBER LIFE GROW UP PLAN SCRIPT HOW TO

They speak of it when you hear of the push to make America energy-independent-a very, very large and complex task that no one quite knows how to do. Gerber: A lot of people try to make analogies to the Manhattan Project. You can’t understand the Cold War unless you understand the Hanford site.Īre there any analogies to the Manhattan Project today? I believe that if you don’t understand the Cold War, you can’t understand the 20 th century.

I believe that if you don’t understand the Cold War, you cannot understand the 20 th century. a whole realignment of nations after World War II, what nations had power, the meaning of colonialism. What was fought here was a battle for the 20 th century’s essential issues: money, power, global positioning, in terms of the alignment of nations. It’s the largest, first and foremost plutonium site in the world. Gerber: Well, to me, the Hanford site is the battlefield of the Cold War. What is essential significance of Hanford? But we can look back and say, how is this handled? How might we do better? How might we simplify and bring everyone into the dialogue, even people who are non-technical? How do we democratize something so new? We have a whole new language in the world of genetics and biotechnology. They certainly weren’t conversant, and it wasn’t easy for them to grasp what this might mean in their lives. They were so new that people didn’t even recognize the words. In other words, nuclear reactors and radiation and all of those technologies were completely new and mysterious in the 1940s. The Manhattan Project can offer us lessons in what we can do when something totally new is thrust upon us. Gerber: I’m not sure you want to use this one. What did we learn from the Manhattan Project? How do we handle something as a war on terror, with all of its implications in terms of cultural and racial and religious issues? The way that we can do that, or at least to begin to do that, is to look back at how the Manhattan Project handled information, and handled technology, and handled bringing people together for a whole new purpose in a whole new place. One way to do that is to talk about how we handle a new technology like genetic engineering. It’s very important for us to find a way to make them see it as relevant to the 21 st century. It is as old in their minds as the American Revolution, and so it’s very distant. In other words, this history’s very old to them. Believe me, when I speak to groups of students, college students and high school students, to them I might as well be Betsy Ross. Gerber: Well, maybe I’ll talk a little more about the third reason I think it’s important, even for students today. Would you like to elaborate on any of those? All of those lessons come to us from the Manhattan Project. The lessons that we can even translate and use in the modern world, about how information was handled, how technology was handled, how large organizations functioned. It’s the lessons in democracy that this project offers to us. The third reason really is different from both of those. If the cleanup of the Manhattan Project facilities and the Cold War facilities in this country is not done expeditiously and well, we could all suffer some consequences in the degradation of our environment. Something that is that expensive, it’s in our national interest to know as much as we can about it.Īnother reason is health and safety. The events set in motion by the Manhattan Project have cost this country trillions of dollars, and every American has paid those taxes. Gerber: I think there are three reasons why people today should care about the Manhattan Project today, even in the 21 St century. Why should people today care about the Manhattan Project?

Michele Gerber: My name is Michele Gerber, M-I-C-H-E-L-E G-E-R-B-E-R.

Gerber life grow up plan script