ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses some of the changes occurring in our world that will affect our development, behavior, environment, and the social work profession. It explores some of the major issues facing the profession in terms of human behavior and the environment, the ways in which social workers are responding to these issues and opportunities these issues offer to the profession and in the future. Social work is concerned with social and economic justice, which can be linked to environmental justice. Climate change and the social, economic, geographic, environmental, and other issues it brings are already having profound effects on human behavior and development, and these changes are expected to intensify as the consequences of climate change become more dramatic. Social work’s comprehensive view of the interaction between person and environment provides a solid foundation on which to build conceptualizations of the natural environment and its role in human behavior.