He also stresses that any study of human ecology presupposes context-dependence and provides case studies of context-dependent exploration of human ecology in the cases of an Arctic Inuit community in the Northwest Territories of Canada and the Inupiat community of Wainwright, Alaska, that demonstrate the theoretical and practical implications of human ecological research in terms of the key elements of biocultural diversity, ways of knowing, and community participation.

Alaska's melting permafrost and wave-eroded Inupiat settlements, Iceland's retreating glaciers, Holland's amphibious houses, vanished golden toads, northward-moving comma butterflies, and the shortening life cycle of mosquitoes are so compellingly described, it's possible to forget to be terrified by what these lessons portend.

Standing on the edge of the receding sea ice-shelf offshore from Barrow, some 560 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, Nayakik, a member of the Inupiat peoples who have inhabited northern Alaska for centuries, says polar bears are a staple food for his family.