The biophysical consequences of climate change on sea levels, extreme weather, ocean acidification, and shifts in temperature and precipitation have broad implications for the human experience and sustaining biodiversity on earth. Extreme drought conditions have threatened agricultural production in California and Australia, for example, while excessive rainfall and floods have threatened food security and lives in southern Asia. Climate scientists predict that by 2100, the global temperature is expected to warm at least as twice as much as it has during the past 100 years.

In their more dispassionate and rational moments, people remind themselves that they should not get too worked up by what happens in a sporting event. After all, they note, "it's just a game." However, as any serious observer of American and world history can tell us, many significant sporting events of the past century have been far more than "just" games. These events and the people involved in them have figured prominently in many of the most important political issues of the past century.