As noted in Chapter 1, since writing the last edition of this text in 2019, the world has undergone rapid changes and continues to transform at an accelerated pace. Social work, often informed by social movements and community experience, aims to anticipate and respond to emerging social issues. Perhaps this is one of the defining hallmarks of the social work profession – its capacity to evolve to address new challenges and opportunities. Throughout this book, and especially in Chapter 2, we explore some of the global social forces and discourses that characterise the rapidly changing contexts in which social work operates. These changes have created new challenges that require critical responses, in some cases generating new fields of practice. In this chapter, our major focus will be on: (1) the increasing urgency of climate change, threats to the planet (and humanity) and the implications of climate change for social work; (2) global pandemics and their impacts for people and service delivery; and (3) increasing wealth inequality and associated poverty and homelessness.