Climatic Patterns and
Economic/Cultural Development
Climates vary considerably across the globe as this map shows:

Different crops, e.g., rice, bananas, and human cultures, e.g., Sahelian kingdoms of West Africa, Hmong in Southeast Asia, respond to each of these climatic types in distinctive ways; hence, the study of geography! Yet, weather, daily occurrences, and climate, the seasonal average of weather, does not cause hunger or any particular level of cultural and economic development, as climatic determinists argue.

Read about the 12 myths of hunger by FoodFirst.

Are famines the result of environmental or human factors? Read about the 2005 case in Niger, West Africa.

The availability of water is dependent on weather and climatic patterns and ground water supplies and how people use and misuse water.

Correlate the location of rich countries and poor countries with the kind of water scarcity shown on the map, which appeared in The Economist, 13 September 200.

Another example: Can climatic and environmental factors explain these changing economic conditions in China? -- just reflect. Until the 15th century, China had the largest income per head and was the technological leader. Measured by GDP per person, China was only overtaken by Western Europe in the 1500s, but remained the largest economy for a long time thereafter. However, by 1950, after a century of civil war and foreign suppression, China's share of world output had fallen to less than 5 percent.

 

The scientific roots of all humans, in contrast to the many origin myths of  religions, were in East Africa. Hence, all humans started out as dark skinned! As human migrated out of Africa into Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Europe, humans with the most appropriate skin colors for the latitude they inhabited emerged. In only 100 generations (each generation is about 20 years), humans changed from dark to light skinned. Some groups, such as the Tamil of South India and the Aborigines of Australia, started out dark skinned, then became lighter as they migrated north, and became darker again as they settled in their present locations.

The amount of sunshine available around the global, decreasing from the equator to the poles over the seasons, resulted in the natural selection of skin colors, from darkest to lightest respectively. Of course, once people started wearing clothing and were moved around the global, as in slavery, or immigrated to other parts of the world, for example, South Indians to New York City, the skin color of people got all fixed up.