For an Eskimo who has Igloo for a house and whose daily life for most of the year is governed by icy temperatures and permafrost, climate certainly governs supreme. Or take people that live in the desert. In these lands, we are told the hot sun is almost a fixture. Not even fleeting clouds can give you temporary relief. Hot sands replace soil.
Rain is a rarity or totally absent.
So much so that plants have their parts twisted and thwarted in response to the water stress and in an attempt to make the best of an impossible situation. Therefore for people that live in such environments, climate is indeed destiny. Some in the desert have been lucky, of course. And we know wherever there is oil, climate is rendered irrelevant. Three hundred years later, a very different story unfolded on California's Channel Islands.