Since the industrial revolution our society has evolved tremendously, but this has also led to extensive changes in the prevailing landscape through settlements and infrastructure while basing our economy and lifestyles on burning fossil fuels. These aspects directly impact different components of the climate system: consumption-intensive lifestyles affect the atmosphere through emissions, the consumption of land through the built environment affect the biosphere, the lithosphere providing space and resources – with each of the components mutually affecting each other. 

Consequently, also our local climate conditions are increasingly modified, resulting in ever more extreme weather events: droughts and related food scarcity, heat and related health risks, extreme precipitation and flooding. The threatening consequences of human-made climate change have been studied in detail already for decades. Thus, the causes and the extent of climate impacts are undisputed among scientists. Measures for mitigating climate change and adapting to inevitable changes have been developed but have yet to be sufficiently implemented, threatening our future additionally even though solutions exist.