"Can the dimensions of different scale levels from a socio-cultural, an economic-administrative and an eco-system perspective at all be compared? The different case studies in Local Climate Change and Society reflect these problems as there is not such a thing as a binary division of the global and the local scale, but in our world today, there are indeed many different scale levels according to the dimensions and the aspects involved". - Hans (J.A.) van Ginkel, former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo.