We review impacts of climate change, energy scarcity, and economic frameworks on sustainability of natural and human systems in coastal zones, areas of high biodiversity, productivity, population density, and economic activity. More than 50% of the global population lives within 200 km of a coast, mostly in tropical developing countries. These systems developed during stable Holocene conditions. Changes in global forcings are threatening sustainability of coastal ecosystems and populations. During the Holocene, the earth warmed and became wetter and more productive. Climate changes are impacting coastal systems via sea level rise, stronger tropical cyclones, changes in basin inputs, and extreme weather events. These impacts are passing tipping points as the fossil fuel-powered industrial-technological-agricultural revolution has overwhelmed the source–sink functions of the biosphere and degraded natural systems. The current status of industrialized society is primarily the result of fossil fuel (FF) use. FFs provided more than 80% of global primary energy and are projected to decline to 50% by mid-century. This has profound implications for societal energy requirements, including the transition to a renewable economy. The development of the industrial economy allowed coastal social systems to become spatially separated from their dominant energy and food sources. This will become more difficult to maintain with the fading of cheap energy. It seems inevitable that past growth in energy use, resource consumption, and economic growth cannot be sustained, and coastal areas are in the forefront of these challenges. Rapid planning and cooperation are necessary to minimize impacts of the changes associated with the coming transition. There is an urgent need for a new economic framework to guide society through the transition as mainstream neoclassical economics is not based on natural sciences and does not adequately consider either the importance of energy or the work of nature.