How have people's changing perceptions of geographic features led to changes in human society?

One way to look at this is through the lens of people's
attitudes towards environmentalism.  Attitudes towards environmentalism (which is a part
of human society) have changed as people's perceptions of geographic features have
changed.

In "primitive" cultures, geographic features
tended to be seen as facts of life or even as sacred.  A mountain or a forest or a river
was there and there was nothing that could be done about it.  You might see it as a
manifestation of a god or a spirit, but you would, at the very least, just think of it
as something that you had no control over.  In these times, people believed in a sort of
primitive environmentalism.

As society progressed, people
came to look at geographical features as challenges or opportunities.  They came to
think that the environment was something to be exploited.  If a hill was in a "bad"
place, you could dig a tunnel through it or even simply knock it down.  If a river was
not behaving "properly," you could dam it.  This changed human society to a society in
which the environment was seen merely as something that existed for human convenience. 
This led to a great deal of exploitation of the
envrionment.

In recent times, some cultures have been
moving back the other way towards having more respect for geographical
features.

So, the way we look at the environment
(environmentalism or opposition to it) has changed over the years.  This has changed our
society and the way that we relate to nature.