Whether or not we respond to climate change – and the security implications of that decision – is a major public policy question. But increasingly experts are paying closer attention to how we respond.

Do you experience information overload? Feel like there’s always another crisis to worry about? Sense a kind of chaos? Well, you may be a citizen of the early 21^st century.

For the past two decades, scholars and policymakers have examined the phenomenon of China’s missing females and corresponding numbers of involuntary bachelors to better understand the causes and consequences of the state’s demographic plight. China has both a heavily skewed male to female sex ratio and faces a drastically shrinking population in coming years.

“Made in China” products surround us, yet few consumers have anything more than a foggy idea of where in China their phones, computers, and other goods come from. Hunan Province in South Central China is not only the home of spicy food, but the world’s largest mines for non-ferrous metals used in many electronic devices. Nearly all the glass panels for Apple and Samsung smartphones are manufactured in Hunan as well. While this multibillion-dollar phone industry has been a boon for Hunan’s economy, it has also produced seriously polluted rivers and soil.

“Climate work is practical, common-sense, good development,” said Carrie Thompson, deputy assistant administrator at the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and Environment at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “It’s prevention, and we all know that preventative medicine is the best medicine.”

“Before the famine my life was better. I was a man in my own country,” Abdi Abdullahi Hussein, a Somali refugee living in Kenya, tells The Climate Reality Project. “When you have livestock and a farm and it all disappears, it feels like falling off a cliff.”

The palm oil sector is at a crossroads. Despite growing awareness of its massive effects on deforestation, the largely unregulated and decentralized industry has struggled to adopt, follow, and document rigorous sustainable sourcing standards.

Have something to say about the U.S. government’s approach to water around the world? Here’s your chance. The Department of State has issued a public call for comment on its global water strategy. An open session was held in Washington last Friday, but written comments can be submitted until November 12.

For inspiration, here are points made by our own (and American University’s own) Ken Conca, edited for space: