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This chapter focuses on the economic and social history of Ireland during the period from 1850 to 1921. It suggests that this period represents an accelerated deterioration of the ideas and institutions of the past, combined with a slow and experimental development of those that came to replace them. Some of the major events in Ireland during this period include the premature reduction in assistance from the United Kingdom, population increase, and industrial development.

This final chapter looks back at the impact of agriculture on human populations, and looks forward to a highly uncertain future for both farming and humanity. The relatively stable Holocene climate enabled the development of farming and a forty-fold increase in human numbers by 2,000 BP. The recent dramatic increases in crop yields due to science-based agriculture have led to a further ten-fold population rise over the past two centuries. The world is now overwhelmingly dominated by complex techno-urban civilizations sustained by high-input farming regimes that rely on cheap and plentiful energy sources and a relatively stable climate. As energy becomes more expensive and the current period of climatic stability draws to a close, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain present levels of population and complex urban societies. As in previous eras, human populations may fall and undergo cultural simplification in response to such climatic uncertainties.

Climate change and direct, local impacts are reducing the ability of reefs to support rich ecosystems, including those of people dependent upon them. Adaptation by reefs has been suggested as being possible, but is unlikely to be sufficient to ensure their survival after a few decades. Human population increase is remorseless and with it comes increasing demand on reef resources. Protected area management and better management of key species holds promise as one method for ensuring reef survival, as does a need to obtain proper monetory values of reefs and their species and of the cost incurred in their loss. Reefs are connected in terms of larval and species flows, so broad scale management of networks of marine protected areas is also needed to ensure the survival of reefs, as is a more intelligent selection of areas for protection which show greatest resilience and ability to recover from impacts.

This chapter begins with a discussion of problems emerging from the increase in Latino populations in the United States. It then presents the primary goals of the book, which include providing an updated social demographic profile of the Latino community, highlighting significant trends with direct implications for social work, and identifying the challenges typically faced by social workers in reaching and serving this community. Author qualifications, outline of the book, and definitions of key concepts used in the book are presented.

This chapter argues that the environmental stressors acting upon populations, especially those stressors of anthropogenic origin, can be better divided into the following three evils: habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, and habitat degradation. Different species, with differing susceptibilities to extinction, should react to these environmental stressors in various ways depending upon their ecological differences, especially in demographic characteristics and population structures. Amphibians exhibit a variety of natural history and life history strategies, and this concept must apply as much to them as to the organisms upon which it was based. A classic problem in animal demographics and population biology is how populations of small animals (rodents, particularly lemmings, in the classic case) fluctuate in size. To understand amphibian population declines, this chapter examines amphibian persistence, extinction, and population increase. It then places these in the context of habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, and habitat degradation.

Beginning in the colonial period and continuing into the first part of the twentieth century, an accumulation of external and internal pressures on Maya communities finally resulted in their inability to obtain subsistence from what remained of their lands. External pressures were the result of migrations of ladinos into Maya areas accompanied by legal or illegal acquisition of Maya land. Internal pressure was population increase. Despite poor living conditions, there was slow population increase due to the paradox of high infant and child mortality resulting in high fertility. The result was a subsistence crisis in which the Maya were forced to seek wage labor as impoverished agricultural workers.

The race between expanding agricultural productivity and increasing human populations began in the Middle East 11 millennia ago. The Neolithic transition from foraging to agriculture caused a demographic transition from low to higher fertility and mortality rates. The small net difference between increasing Neolithic fertility and mortality rates led inexorably to world population increases. As agriculture caused the earlier demographic transition, industrialization caused the later one. Only in the 1960s, however, did the demographic transition begin in non-industrial countries, where the race between agriculture and people became the most intense. Fortunately, the Green Revolution kept up with rapidly growing populations in most countries. Today, sub-Saharan Africa is the only major region in the world not adequately feeding its populations. Therefore, although the race between increasing population and agricultural productivity began in the Middle East 11 millennia ago, its conclusion will likely be determined in Africa in the next half century.

Drawing upon research from the field of genocide studies, this chapter argues that there is a connection between the genocidal violence described in some biblical texts and the marked population increases that occurred in Iron Age Palestine and the surrounding regions. It uses the Rwandan genocide as a case study for understanding multicausal frameworks for explicating genocide, demonstrating that a combination of factors is necessary for genocidal violence to occur. In both Rwanda and the ancient Levant, population increases, land scarcities, and the particular realities of ethnic identity formation were catalysts for extreme interethnic violence. The chapter examines archaeological evidence for population increases, as well as evidence from such texts as the Mesha Inscription, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Amos, paying special attention to passages discussing the practice of ḥērem and concludes with a reflection on materialist approaches to ritual violence.

Climate change and direct, local impacts are reducing the ability of reefs to support rich ecosystems, including those of people dependent upon them. Reef adaptation has been suggested as being possible, but is unlikely to be sufficient to ensure their survival after a few decades. Human population increase is remorseless and with it comes increasing demand on reef resources. Protected area management and better management of key species holds promise as one method for ensuring reef survival, as does a need to obtain proper ecosystem values of reefs and their species and of the cost incurred in their loss. Reefs are connected in terms of larval and species flows, so broadscale management of networks of marine protected areas is also needed to ensure the survival of reefs, as is a more intelligent selection of areas for protection, favouring those which show greatest resilience and ability to recover from impacts.