As we assess our natural and social environments in 2018, we are finding ourselves in the midst of any number of 鈥渃hanging climates鈥濃�攁ll with significant implications for humanity and the world around us.

Among the most evident and pressing is  global climate change, which if unchecked, will have profound and devastating consequences for life on Earth as we know it. Climate change is altering weather patterns, sea levels and oceanic life, global ecosystems and biodiversity, agricultural production, water resources, and the livelihoods鈥攁nd very lives鈥攐f a significant portion of the world鈥檚 human population.

But other climates are changing as well: the  social climate, with conflict over women鈥檚 rights
and LGBTQ+ rights, conflict over refugees and migrants, and conflicts over the practices of mass
incarceration; the  racial climate  in the United States, in particular, with increased tensions
arising from inequality in law enforcement and emboldened white nationalism; the
international and domestic  political climate, with wars of growing complexity and movements
of growing nationalist and populist tendencies that have fundamentally altered discourse,
policies, and programs; the  economic climate, with challenges to the globalization/free trade
paradigm internationally and the wealth gap at home; the  intellectual climate, with new
challenges to intellectualism itself and intensify