The Empire of Climate - The Body of Climatic Opinion

Eminent geographer Professor David Livingstone wants us to see that climate is more than just the weather outside our window - it's an empire that has shaped our lives throughout history. In the Western world, we live very cushioned lives, so that climate rarely impacts on us in a disastrous fashion. When it does - like the floods that hit parts of the UK in 2007 - we're left shocked and surprised by the ferocity of what climate can do. David explores the way human beings are shaped by weather patterns; "climate has always been a moral issue - not just a description of the weather" he says. In today's programme Professor Livingstone looks at how our global geography has been divided into the pestilential and the paradisial, the healthy and the harmful. Whole regions of the world have been cast as nourishing; others as noxious. And these mental maps have had immediate effects on human behaviour. He believes lessons from history about the effects of climate on our bodies should act as a cautionary tale.