The culmination of five years of work by three working groups comprising hundreds of scientists around the world, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment was released in parts throughout this year. A newly released synthesis presents their findings in one document.

Global crises like the Ebola outbreak force us to consider what “security” really means, said Sharon Burke, senior advisor for the New America Foundation. “Is security getting our kids to school and food on the table…or are you talking about military security and defense threats that require a weapon to counter?”

By 2045, global population will be north of 9 billion with increased urbanization and migration, natural resource stress, improved medical technologies, greater use of robotic labor, and a shift towards lifelong (and increasingly online) learning, according to a recent report from the UK Ministry of Defense.

A series of executive orders signed by President Obama since his first year in office requires all federal agencies to begin planning for climate change and produce an updated adaptation plan by May of this year. The Pentagon is a little late, but today they released their second-ever climate roadmap.

The effects of climate change “are here now” and pose a “serious challenge” for the United States, said Alice Hill, White House senior advisor for preparedness and resilience, at the Wilson Center on July 29. [Video Below]

Is it possible to prepare for the unexpected? Could anyone have foreseen, for instance, a nuclear meltdown triggered by an earthquake-induced tsunami? Or a brutal band of transnational militants quickly capturing Iraq’s largest dam while attempting to establish a new Islamic caliphate? Perhaps not exactly, but that shouldn’t stop us from anticipating unlikely events, says Chad Briggs, a risk assessment expert and strategy director of consulting firm GlobalInt.

In 1986, global nuclear weapons stockpiles peaked at nearly 70,000 warheads. By the beginning of 2013, there were just over 17,000, with only 4,400 kept operational. This dramatic reduction was the fruit of a negotiation process that began in the late 1940s. In spite of incredible tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, negotiators were able to make progress once they focused on building trust with small, pragmatic steps, rather than starting with the complete elimination of all weapons. [Video Below]