Global warming and climate change are now high-priority issues for most political leaders, despite the lingering resistance from isolated but sometimes powerful interest groups. The international scientific community, in its recently released report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2007a, b), warns of impending climate changes that are much more dramatic than those our world presently experiences. Hence, more and more, people are demanding that action be taken urgently to address climate change challenges and prevent further damage to Earth.

Concurrently, anxieties over global and national energy security are developing at a time of record oil and gas prices and a rapid increase in global demand, particularly from fast-growing economies. At the same time, concerns about worldwide water resources are mounting regarding the need to share and better manage water availability to support an immense global population while ensuring sustainable socioeconomic development and reducing the gap between poor and rich countries. All this is happening in the context of an urbanizing and aging global population, faced with increasing competition for natural resources.

Both population growth and rapid socioeconomic expansion impose huge costs in the form of environmental degradation of land and the quality of air and water supplies; in turn, these costs are exacerbated by climate change. Through their activities, humans alter natural regimes with which organism have evolved over time. These changes in human and natural systems are occurring faster now than at any time in recent history.