Change has always been present, but the cotton industry like all Australian agriculture in general is facing change at an unprecedented rate and from different causes. In this article we consider changes that the cotton industry faces associated with: 'climate change' in the meteorological sense; regulatory issues relating to reductions in water availability and carbon emissions trading; rising costs of production; and competition from other commodities. For cotton 'climate change' per se will influence production directly through rising CO2 levels, experiencing higher temperature more often, lower humidity and less water availability. To combat these changes as well as dealing with increasing costs caused by rises in energy, and future emissions trading will mean that sustainable cotton production will need to adopt practices in combination that will: increase and/or maintain high yield and quality; improve a range of production efficiencies (water, nitrogen, energy /bale etc.); seek to improve a better return for lint and seed; or consider other cropping options as alternatives. We present the impacts of these changes on cotton production systems and highlight some options. Management options include: high yielding/high quality stress tolerant varieties; optimising water use; manipulating maturity; varying planting time; optimising crop nutrition; and maintaining diligent monitoring practices for weeds, pests and diseases to enable flexible management.