Deep problems in our future, AAAS hears

Worries global in scope and local in impact converge on practically everything: climate change and disruptive weather patterns, energy shortages, vast coastal urbanization of the poorest countries, widespread economic insecurity, terrorism, hunger, the declining US influence in the world, and most any other topic that comes to mind. In May, the American Association for the Advancement of Science arranged a special session during its annual Forum on science and technology to give the R&D community some concrete sense of what lies obscured by the future's murk. Immigration alone will not drive new technology because there is a little thing called talent that relates to innovation. With US R&D 2.6% of GDP and GDP one-third innovation-driven, one of the key ways in which the US will play and win in the game is to inspire, catalyze and think about these networked economies where vested players get to contribute together for making a robust free market and free-minded economies.