ABSTRACT
The fates of societies and civilisations have always been intimately connected to climate. The interaction of climate and geography has influenced the broad trajectory of human
history in several ways and on scales from local to continental. Climate affects distribution of plant and animal species available for domestication; the productivity of agriculture, in
terms of growing rates and seasons, soil formation, and of the
presence or absence of diseases and pests; and the ecology of human disease.1
