What is the most difficult enviroment to survive in?
This is what I think from number one being the hardest:
If anyone can add onto the list I would like to hear some suggestions.
What are other people’s opinion?
People have survived, even thrived, in all of those environments. I don’t think “difficulty” matters.
I think the jungle would be pretty sweet. The plains are probably fucked without the Buffalo.
these would be difficult to survive in if you were unfamilar with it. but the tribes that have lived in those environments have thrived, because they found a way that works in that environment. if one could take a survey of a tribe in each area, i seriously doubt any would clasify their way of life as ‘hard’. To them they are simply living.
although now, it may be so, do to climate changes and mass exinctions, and by our influence.
and sure if you got dropped off in the arctic, that would be pretty damn hard.
Antarctica. NO human culture has ever survived there!
Fixed 
lots of the research stations have year-round occupation, though they’re dependent on supplies from outside. That’s human culture ain’t it?
Ok now I’m just being annoying… hehe.
Before the modern age, I don’t think anyone even made it to Antarctica. People made it to the southern tip of South America, but I don’t think they traveled any further.
I’ve always wondered if it would be possible for natural people to live there. Could probably live on the Antarctic Peninsula and live off penguins and seals and whales. I wonder how penguin tastes?
I haven’t actually tasted any, but the fat content is ginormous. Which is good, you’d need all those calories…
[quote=“Kaliverdant, post:6, topic:244”][quote author=The Prissiest Primitivist link=topic=247.msg2755#msg2755 date=1184166063]
Antarctica. NO human culture has ever survived living off the land there!
[/quote]
Fixed
lots of the research stations have year-round occupation, though they’re dependent on supplies from outside. That’s human culture ain’t it?
Ok now I’m just being annoying… hehe.[/quote]
See, that’s why I specified culture instead of just humans… the research stations don’t have their own unique culture or society; they’re just transplants from whatever culture they came from.
Although I suspect that with global warming, Antarctica won’t be uninhabitable for long. Just a whole lot smaller.
Ah, but the parts that haven’t melted into the sea be warm/habitable enough? Hmm, interesting…
In the Fifth World, Antarctica is covered in evergreen forests, inhabited by people who migrated from Tierra del Fuego. 
In the Fifth World, Antarctica is covered in evergreen forests, inhabited by people who migrated from Tierra del Fuego.
Do you think it’s going to get that warm in Antarctica?
The ice caps have disappeared a couple of times already in Earth’s history…
I just read that most of Anarctica has been continually covered with ice for 15 million years. I don’t think global warming will melt all the ice on the continent. Probably won’t melt even nearly the majority of ice. I mean, do you know how cold it is there? Have you seen the temperature average at the Vostok station? It’s fucking cold there. It would have to get much, much, much warmer to have an effect on most of Antarctica’s ice sheet, which averages at least a mile in thickness. Our little 0.6° C warming isn’t nearly enough to affect it. Yes I know, the high latitude regions warm faster than the rest of the world, but outside of the Antarctic Peninsula, which is warming pretty significantly, the rest of the continent has shown no warming trend.
Please don’t take me wrong; I am NOT a global warming skeptic. I’m just sort of looking at this realistically, and when you look at Vostok averaging -65° C in winter and -30° C in summer, you see that it is going to take an absolutely massive warming to get trees to grow there. I don’t think us humans, even with our sizeable concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, will be able to warm much of this region to the point of THAT massive of a melting.
most difficult environment to survive in???
with all the traffic, bills, errands, concrete, sewage, noise, emotional disorders, unhealthy food options, lack of community, inundation of laws, lack of unaltered nature, plastic, asphalt, anger, frustration i would put inner cities up there.
I hope to live with and travel to all those locations you mentioned, Joker, and everywhere in-between by foot meeting up with other humans and non-human on the way voluntarily. Personally, I’d have to add our civilization to any list of difficult environments to live with or in (I don’t know about the other civs. I suppose they work each other equally as hard for their tilled meals.) I’d list it as numero uno. Most of those you mentioned on your list, The Joker, to me, also have various vast more wilderness sub-division to live with and earn respect from again by us who want to rewild. I say elevation plays a huge part in our daily rewilding activities, and hills, cliffs, weather, flash floods, dark forest, oceans, rivers, predators, wild poison/stings/bites/pricks/thorns, thick brush, thickets, volcanos, endless holes, quick sand, quick mud, environmental change, new species, sun light, all, to me, can embrace one with their environment in ways we don’t think fit or see coming unless we look forward to fitness and conditioning for unknown and known. I see this as non-human wilderness takes quite a bit of understanding to learn to live with, however, understanding doesn’t always help to get through tough situations because sometimes one just needs an extra pair of hands or an experienced mind to get through to the next level or day. I see myself trying nowadays to treat every environment with an equal respect and unexpecting-of-anything approach. I don’t want to get kicked in the balls by a deer while living in the ‘forest’ thinking “'forest feels ‘simpler’ than so and so.” Shit (I mean stinky stuff) can happens everywhere, a matter of fact, I even identified my first nutria scat on the boardwalk at the park’s woods today! J/K But, seriously, if one likes walking one might try the plains and swamps, if one like climbing in general one may find more comfort living in mountains and hills with tree growing on them to climb even more; if one wants snow and doesn’t have any where they currently live and wants some one goes north; if one likes water one may feel more at home close to an oceans/pond/river/lake/streams/waterfalls/bog/etc. What ever floats ones boat I guess; like I leaned towards earlier, personally I just want to live with all of’em nomadically on foot.