ABSTRACT
Predictions of future northern social and cultural conditions must be based on existing knowledge and components of contemporary social structure. Three determinants of demographics and economics of northern North America have been a challenging climate, resources that are patchily distributed or inaccessible to development, and a low carrying capacity for human populations. Changes in technology and pressures for resource development, combined with regional and global effects of a warmer climate, may drastically alter assumptions about northern economies and human populations. Although areas favorable to agricultural expansion because of global warming are limited in North America, biotechnological breakthroughs may allow farming of crops not currently grown in some soils and climates of the North. The greatest agricultural impact of warming may be conversion of marginal agricultural environments such as those in northern Alberta to more productive croplands.
