Living in a Dangerous Climate provides a journey through human and Earth history, showing how a changing climate has affected human evolution and society. Is it possible for humanity to evolve quickly, or is slow, gradual, genetic evolution the only way we change? Why did all other Homo species go extinct while Homo sapiens became dominant? How did agriculture, domestication and the use of fossil fuels affect humanity's growing dominance? Do today's dominant societies--devoted as they are to Darwinism and 'survival of the fittest'--contribute to our current failure to meet the hazards of a dangerous climate? Unique and thought provoking, the book links scientific knowledge and perspectives of evolution, climate change and economics in a way that is accessible and exciting for the general reader. The book is also valuable for courses on climate change, human evolution and environmental science.
Part I. Earth's Climate: Impacts on Habitat and Humans
1. Putting our emergent house in order
Part II. The Evolution of the Homo Species
2. The cradle of humankind
3. The Neanderthal enigma
4. The end of Homo diversity
Part III. Climate and Human Migration
5. Climate and human migration
6. Braving the new world
Part IV. Climate and Agriculture
7. Agriculture and the rise of civilization
8. The Maya civilization and beyond
Part V. The Dominant Paradigm
9. Dominance destabilized
10. Fitness folly
11. Darwin the selector
12. Hunting down Woody and Arlo
13. Kammerer's suicide
14. Giants and pygmies
15. Dutch hunger winter babies
Part VI. Today and Tomorrow
16. Today and tomorrow
17. Dead zones
Part VII. The Economic Connection
18. The economic connection
19. The progress of dominance
Part VIII. Dangerous Attitudes
20. Dangerous attitudes
21. Helpful strangers
22. Triumphant oblivion
Part IX. Living in Dangerous Times
23. Our children
24. Living in a dangerous climate
Renee Hetherington obtained a BA (Business and Economics) from Simon Fraser University in 1981, an MBA from the University of Western Ontario in 1985 and an Interdisciplinary PhD (Anthropology, Biology, Geography, and Geology) from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, in 2002. She was awarded a Canadian National Science and Engineering Research doctoral fellowship for her work on reconstructing the paleogeography and paleoenvironment of the Queen Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii. The Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Council subsequently awarded her a postdoctoral fellowship for her research relating climate change to human evolution and adaptability over the last 135,000 years. She has been co-leader of International Geological Correlation Program project 526, 'Risks, Resources, and Record of the Past on the Continental Shelf'. She and her husband Bob are partners in RITM Corp., a consulting company committed to helping organizations, especially in the resource sector, reach their potential while recognizing we are in a changing world. She ran for Member of the Canadian Parliament in 2011 and is currently a member of Shadow Caucus with the Federal Liberal Party of Canada. Renee is the co-author (with Robert Reid) of "The Climate Connection: Climate Change" and "Modern Human Evolution" (Cambridge University Press, 2010). She lives with her family on Vancouver Island.