So, I would say among America's most serious concerns, you could consider national security, which is now intimately tied to energy security and access to energy, the long term economic competitiveness of the United States, and the dangers of global warming. And I believe that this energy issues is at the center of all of these concerns, and thus I think it's the single most important problem (societal problem) that science has to solve. If you compare it to other things we invest heavily in - for example,investments in medicine, cures of heart disease, stroke, cancer - if we don't solve those problems, it would be tragic. But life would go on as we know it. If we don't solve this problem, life could really change.

This could be a very interesting choice.

Edit: The video below was pointed to by ericy: