When it comes to great public speaking to blog about, lately I’ve been spoiled for choice. But in terms of science, and in particular the engagement of scientists and engineers in the challenges facing our world, I can think of no better example than Nina Federoff’s plenary lecture at the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2008 meeting in Boston last month. From her opening statements:

”I’ve heard some spectacular plenary lectures at AAAS meetings over the years. The ones that have stayed most vividly in my mind address the deteriorating state of our planet, and the huge inequalities between our way of life and those of the poor in the world’s poorest nations…These are lectures that stir the imagination and the indignation and the desire to do something, but for most of us the impulse passes. It passes because it isn’t really clear what any one of us can do, even with our marvelous scientific training and skills. The problems seem overwhelming, our lives are busy enough. In the end, we go back to business as usual. My objective here is to persuade you that it is enormously important that you as scientists, as members of this country’s extraordinary scientific community, stop going back to business as usual…”

Federoff exemplifies her call for more scientists to become science diplomats, in the sense of highly skilled people bringing their knowledge of science and technology to bear on questions of policy as well as research. She is the science and technology adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State and adviser to the U.S. Agency for International Development. She is also author of the wonderful book, Mendel In The Kitchen: A Scientist’s View of Genetically Modified Foods, and is a plant geneticist at Penn State University.

The substance of her plenary speech at AAAS, a full video is available from the link above, concerns the role that scientists can play in addressing both acute and chronic problems of environmental deterioration, poverty, and war. Although her talk focuses on the AAAS Science Diplomacy Fellows program as an example of scientists engaged in this work, her remarks are a valuable starting point for anyone who has ever stopped to put down the pipette while listening to the news and thought, “I feel like I should do something.” Take a listen, I think you’ll be inspired.