Living in a Dangerous Climate

Renée Hetherington obtained a BA in Business and Economics from Simon Fraser University, British in 1981; an MBA from the University of Western Ontario in 1985; and an interdisciplinary PhD in 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 reconstructing the paleogeography and paleoenvironment of the Queen Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii. The Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research 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 the United Nations International Geological Correlation Program project 526, 'Risks, Resources, and Record of the Past on the Continental Shelf'. She is CFO and director of RITM Corp., a natural resource and management consulting company. She ran for office as a Member of the Canadian Parliament in 2011 and is currently member of Shadow Caucus with the Federal Liberal Party of Canada. She is the co-author (with Robert Reid) of The Climate Connection (Cambridge, 2010).

• 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; 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.

'… a wide-ranging book with high ambitions … excellent read for the general reader …' Miriam Belmaker, Reports of the National Center for Science Education