Climate change has already profoundly changed the ecological world on all levels of the biological hierarchy. Comparing the past with the present allows researchers to document that changes have happened, and to understand why some groups (e. g. birds vs. mammals in the Mojave Desert) respond differently than others. Climate change has already changed population phenology, and researchers can estimate the speed of phenological change. Population range shifts may occur on two fronts: leading-edge expansion and trailing-edge contraction. Both of these processes are influenced by biotic and abiotic factors. Climate change can also influence the genetic structure and sex ratio of populations – in extreme cases leading to extinction. Changes to the timing of migration or to the emergence of plants and insects can cause phenological mismatch of exploitative or competitive interactions. Prey species are likely to benefit, while predators or herbivores may suffer from lack of food. On a larger scale, both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are showing the effects of climate change, even in tropical biomes where warming and drying are not as prominent as they are in more temperate or polar biomes. Though immune to drought, marine biomes are suffering from acidification and from low oxygen levels.

As the largest publicly funded, nonformal education system in the United States, Cooperative Extension (a.k.a. “Extension”) has played a critical role in how technologies and innovations generated through state agricultural experiment stations (AES) and land-grant universities (LGUs) in the United States have been translated and shared directly to its constituents for over a century. Extension has served as a unique and robust system to collaborate, generate, and disseminate research, as well as to engage in mission-oriented work to support communities in optimizing their current and future circumstances and through collaborative partnerships shaping the ways in which we cultivate and preserve food, how we educate and care for our children, manage our finances, work with communities, and support populations disproportionality affected by structural inequities. The current volume brings together leading scholars to discuss Extension’s contributions to the well-being of children, youth, families, and communities; and to critically reflect on Extension’s future directions in light of significant shifts in the context in which it now operates.

When does a collection of individuals become a group or a community? What holds groups, communities, and societies together, even as individuals come and go? These questions concern social cohesion, the bonds through which otherwise disconnected individuals become part of something larger and more lasting than themselves. Social cohesion is perhaps the most central issue in the founding of sociology as a discipline, and its relevance persists today. Social network analysis has much to offer in making the study of social cohesion more formal and precise. Whereas in the previous chapter, we examined structures from the standpoint of their constituent elements of dyads and triads, here we step back to try to see more of the bigger structural picture through the overall pattern of ties in a network.

The final chapter turns its attention to considering how fantastic forms facilitate productive exchanges between creators and audiences. It contends that fantasies are made both in communities and for communities – sometimes as gifts, sometimes as challenges, but always with the idea of adding something new to a shared commons that can in its turn be taken up, valued and built upon. The chapter begins by discussing the importance of craft and exchange in Fantasy culture, considering how Fantasy diverges from conflictual models of influence articulated by critics like Harold Bloom and exploring how fantasies such as Jo Walton’s Among Others and Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story express a deep faith in the power of readers and reading. It then explores fan-cultural exchanges, touching on Critical Role, Archive of Our Own, A Very Potter Musical and the practice of modding video games. Finally, the chapter turns to questions of inclusion, discussing works by Patricia A. McKillip and Ursula K. Le Guin, the representation of race in genre fiction, and the changing ways that contemporary communities play Dungeons & Dragons.

This chapter delves into the challenges and rewards of working in remote areas of countries such as Australia and small Pacific nations. Teaching strategies are presented to assist in maintaining a positive learning environment in remote and small Pacific-nation classrooms. The importance of the relationships among and between parents, students, teachers and other community members is explored, along with practical suggestions for making the most of the available resources. This chapter explores strategies for making the most of available resources and the invaluable professional experience of working in these areas.

The introduction explores what is at stake in Fantasy culture. It opens with a passage from a 1951 letter by J. R. R. Tolkien that expresses his aspirations and doubts, before exploring how Tolkien’s success served to catalyse a series of formations inspired in part by him but not bounded or limited by his conceptions. Through discussing Michael Moorcock’s essay ‘Epic Pooh’, the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, societies and awards in the 1970s, and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, it models Fantasy as a generative, ongoing conversation. The introduction then engages directly with questions of definition, considering the centrality of impossibility to a consensus about what Fantasy means, discussing important work by Brian Attebery and Farah Mendlesohn, and asserting that Fantasy is best understood as a complex assemblage of creators, audiences, languages, forms, conventions, tropes, communities, institutions, histories and traditions. It closes by arguing that dismissing Fantasy as an escapist form is both quixotic and myopic. People often have very good reasons to want to get outside dominant frameworks for a while, and they return from Fantasy worlds refreshed and with valuable new perspectives.

This short conclusion briefly summarises the book’s contentions regarding language, iteration, reworked traditions, mimesis, world-building and communities, before articulating a final argument for the importance and interest of Fantasy.

The 2018 National Academy of Sciences report on proactive policing acknowledges that police strategies to prevent crime are likely to have collateral consequences on community outcomes, and in some cases (such as community-oriented policing) aim to shape community outcomes directly. However, strategies that effectively prevent crime have mixed effects on community outcomes, while approaches that improve community perceptions of the police often do not have strong crime control benefits. In this chapter I propose that the future of proactive policing may depend on developing a better understanding of the complex relationship between communities, police, and crime prevention. Rather than viewing community impacts and crime prevention impacts as two separate processes, I argue that community support and collaboration are inherent to proactivity and may ultimately moderate the success or failure of proactive policing strategies. I conclude with suggestions for future research and theory development to better understand this relationship and translate research into effective practice.

Chapter 7 describes the generative, or bottom-up, forces that were part of urban life. These are organized in terms of households, crafts and occupations, neighborhoods, and quality of life.