AAAS President John P. Holdren Urges Swift Action to Build a Sustainable Future

SAN FRANCISCO—Challenges such as poverty, climate change and nuclear proliferation pose unprecedented global risks that require scientists and engineers to join with political and business leaders in a concerted search for solutions, AAAS President John P. Holdren said Thursday.

In his Presidential Address at the AAAS Annual Meeting, Holdren described a world poised at a moment of decision: Without swift and urgent action, he said, the problems could spiral in just a few decades toward disastrous, permanent changes for all of life on Earth.

He outlined a range of actions that societies must consider, and urged individual scientists, engineers and technologists to "tithe" 10 percent of their time to "to working to increase the benefits of S&T for the human condition and decrease the liabilities."

For more information, read the full story.