CHICAGO -- "Today, the warming of our planet is unequivocal, and human activities are a primary cause," says James J. McCarthy, president of the non-profit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). "Within the next few human generations, the effect of these climate changes could put the survival of many species at risk."

If today's students are going to help solve such problems in the future, says McCarthy, the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University: "We must provide a high-quality science and mathematics education for all children. That means teaching evolution and other science basics, and protecting the integrity of science education."

When McCarthy presides 12-16 February over America's largest general scientific conference, strategies for leveraging science and technology to help solve pressing world problems will take center stage. Often described as "the Olympics of science conferences," the 175th annual conference of AAAS, publisher of the journal Science, may draw as many as 10,000 attendees from 60 countries to Chicago.

McCarthy's Annual Meeting theme, "Our Planet and Its Life: Origins and Futures," recognizes the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, as well as the 150th anniversary of three other events -- the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, the first commercial oil well, and Sir John Tyndall's discovery of carbon dioxide's greenhouse effect.

Sadly, McCarthy contends: "The natural processes so astutely intuited by Darwin can now be swamped by the actions of a single species." The global financial crisis continues, meanwhile, and a recent multi-nation report card revealed that American science and math education must be reformed to shore up the workforce of tomorrow: Young people in many less developed countries now outperform their U.S. counterparts in both science and math, according to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.

But McCarthy hastens to point out that science, technology, and science education promise solutions to many critical challenges -- including new jobs and prosperity, health insights to improve human welfare, and more sustainable, productive agricultural strategies.

Read more here: http://news.aaas.org/2009/0210aaas-annual-meeting-opens-in-chicago.shtml