Introduction: The Anthropocene -- Global Change Research in the Anthropocene: Introductory Remarks -- Managing Global Change: Earth System Science in the Anthropocene -- The “Anthropocene” -- Sustainability Science -- What about Complexity of Earth Systems? -- Global Change and Human Security -- Climate Change, New Weather Extremes and Climate Policy -- Assessing Human Vulnerability to Global Climatic Change -- Fire Ecology of the Recent Anthropocene -- Disaster Prevention -- Global Environmental Change and Human Health -- Urban Disasters as Indicators of Global Environmental Change: Assessing Functional Varieties of Vulnerability -- Energy in a Sustainable Development Perspective -- Interfaces between Nature and Society -- Integrative Water Research: GLOWA Volta -- Carbon Cycle Research as a Challenge of the Anthropocene -- International Institutions and the Carbon Regime -- Global Environmental Change and Food Systems GECAFS: A new interdisciplinary research project -- Food Security in South Asia -- Scientific Challenges for Anthropogenic Research in the 21st Century -- Scientific Challenges for Anthropogenic Research in the 21st Century: Problems of Scale.