Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

So, what happened (slight oversimplification, but you can read up on it) was:

* English people owned the land and the produce of the land in Ireland.

* Irish people had little choice but to work for English people, and were allowed tiny plots of often-horrendous land on which to grow their own food.

Potatoes were one of the few things that could grow on the land the Irish were allowed to use. When disease affected the potato crops, the English simply shrugged, kept exporting their own produce, and let the Irish die (and notably took steps to try to prevent foreign aid reaching Ireland, on the theory that it would be shameful for foreigners to do more for the Irish than the English were doing).

There are strong arguments to be made, especially given the historical English attitude toward Ireland and the Irish, that it turned into an opportunistic genocide: the English didn't set out at first to kill so many Irish, but given the opportunity to simply sit back and let the Irish die off, they took it.

They're basically right. Ireland grew lots of crops, but the only one affected was potatoes. Unfortunately the only crop the vast majority of the population could afford was potatoes, as all the other crops were exported.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Irish_f...

That's partly correct and partly incorrect. It's incorrect in the claim that the government withheld the potato supply. The potato crop massively failed due to potato blight. The government had nothing to do with the potato shortage. This was not just in Ireland, but also through Europe. It was more significant in Ireland, though, because something like 40% of the population depended on potatoes for most of their nutrition.

It is correct that there were plenty of crops, but these were grain crops, not potatoes, which were raised largely for export. In earlier famines the government had banned exports and made those non-potato crops go to feeding the Irish. That was very unpopular with businesses. In the Great Famine the government did not curb exports, and so even though Ireland was producing enough non-potato food to feed those who had been depending almost solely on potatoes, that food was exported instead. So in that sense, much of the blame for results of the potato crop failures can be laid at the hands of the government.

Edit: there is an interesting song, written by Steven and Peter Jones, based on letters their great-great-grandfather in Ireland sent to their great-grandfather, who had immigrated to the United States. There are five verses, covering the contents of five of the letters, between 1860 and 1892. Although this is after the Great Famine, it provides an interesting look at what life was like in Ireland for ordinary farmers as they went through hardship and had family members leaving the country.

Here's a nice performance of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRHQAtKbRTk

This is the natural cycle of things. The dead trees will open up space for competitors to move in until some disease/insect/etc... comes in to clear out the new competitors and open up space for yet another competitor.

It's really only a problem if the trees are crop trees and someone's livelihood is at stake (see: Orange Greening). Otherwise it's best (easiest) to just leave the problem alone and accept that something else will take the place of those trees.

Not plant related, but equally fascinating: There used to be a lake bigger than Lake Tahoe in California between Fresno and Bakersfield. It It was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (by surface area). It was drained for agriculture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake