Homo conflagrans

Someone recommended John Vaillant as a book-writing journalist, so I snagged Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (2023) off the shelf in Wexford Town library. The inspiration of the book and about 2/3rds of its content is the Fort McMurray wildfire which swept out of the surrounding forest and destroyed about 20% of the homes and emptied the city of ~88,000 people in a matter of hours. Nobody died! but damage was estimated at $10billion. In addition ~600,000 hectares of forest and muskeg were swept by a wall of flame - that's 3 medium sized Irish counties [KK + WX + WW] or the state of Delaware or an average département de la France.

Vaillant's thesis is that the McMurray fire and the other uncontainable conflagrations of recent years are a direct consequence of galloping climate change, in particular the way we have been spewing out greenhouse gases like CO₂ and CH₄ without heed or hindrance during my lifetime. Of course, my grandfather was pottering about Co Wexford in his own car for his own convenience in the 1940s so it's not all on me. But I've driven 100x further than my ancestor and I'm not dead yet. 

So here's a thing, known to all foresters and fire-fighters, but not obvious to all thinking people until it's e x p l a i n e d. "Crossover" occurs when the relative humidity in % is less than the temperature in °C; this makes conflagration much more likely - just a spark will do. We got a dehumidifier for the kitchen last November - hilariously named R2D2 R1DH. Our whole house, not just the kitchen has 500mm rubble-in-courses external walls. The windows used to weep and the walls developed a palette of fungal colours. We achieved a lowest ever RH of 52% at tea-time on the Spring Equinox after 3 days of cloudless sunshine. tbf, I opened the window and the front door for a warm draft to get from 55% to the shown [R] 52%. It has never gotten close to 52°C in Ireland. It's going to take another bomb to set our soggy house on fire. A weather station close to the 2018 Redding Fire recorded 44°C and 7% RH!

Here's another rule of thumb: firefighters need a water supply in gallons/min equivalent to the BTUs generated by the fire. A US gallon is about 4 lt and a BTU is about 1,000 Joules. That energy is enough to raise 250ml of water by 10°C. Now before the gas-grill goes on fire check to see how much water you can dribble out of your 12mm garden hose in a minute

Then again, then again, one of the tropes in Vaillant's tale is the Lucretius Effect, a cognitive bias where the biggest [whatever] you can imagine is the biggest example you've heard about . . . and a little bit more. But the temperatures of these MegaFires haven't happened since the end of the Permian 250million years ago. When the wall of flame stormed into residential sub-divisions of FtMcM they vaporized 200sq.m. million-dollar homes in 5 minutes - one big whooomph and there's nothing left but the [reinforced concrete] walls of the basement. Because it's a boom town and everyone was making silly money demand/supply drove up the cost and drove down the standards. Even the best homes in North America are thrun up from 4x2 studs and sheet-rock with vinyl siding and tar-paper shingles on the roof. To a regular fire that-all looks like so much fuel with convenient pockets of oxygen in each room. A garage full of cars and snomobiles with full tanks && propane tanks to service the BBQ grills && several fire-arms with boxes of ammo: that's just a source of pop-off shrapnel. If the owner and their bank pays a million dollars for a big-old shanty, lots of folks along the supply chain are laughing all the way to the same bank.

In Ireland one of the scandals of the Celtic Tiger was that developers and regulators conspired to cut corners with fire-safety - failing to separate each apartment from the next. But at least the structures were /are built of bricks not tar-paper.

Back to the book. The dust jacket says Vaillant writes for Nat.Geog. New |Yorker and The Atlantic. You can tell from "Steve's wife Carrie, who is tall and slender with wavy dark hair . . ."  and the numerous similar journo tics of providing irrelevant details to establish ?empathy? The style is pacy and engaging and reminds me of Mark Kurlansky and books about Salmon and Cod as bell-wethers for dramatic change in species diversity and abundance. I'm sure Vaillant and his editors thought and fought over the structure of Fire Weather: because he wanted to tell a gripping yarn on the streets of FtMcM but also flesh out the history of climate change and (climate change denialism).

But the transition whacked me into a confusion. p224/359 ends with ". . .It was the fire's third day inside Fort McMurray". And the next chapter begins with "The Middle Ages saw an slowly dawning awareness that there was something in the air . . ." followed by Priestley this then Tyndall that and Teller the other. Much as Ireland appreciates naming Tyndall for his atmospherics, we're still on the edge of our seats waiting to see what Day Four brings in NE Alberta.

"The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks" Wally Broeker

Maybe read the book and spend sometime adjusting the content of your GoBag to include a reflective fire blanket and some tubes of Savlon. Always remembering Lucretius: the disaster which next requires a GoBag won't be stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine. 

*R1DH aka Our one de-hum. 

Hail Fellows

In Summer 2024, I was delighted to bear witness when my pal Dan Bradley was elevated to FRS. He has been doing sterling work for more than 30 years in the history of domestic animals incl humans. Almost all my science friends are a) younger and b) more 'successful' than me: so many medals, fellowships and chairs. I guess that all my older science friends are, like, dead.

Apart from Metafilter, my only opening to social media is LinkedIn, which delivers 'news' from /about my LinkPals. It's kinda terrible, the original post is fine - usually about Such-a-one completing their PhD or publishing a paper. But it's followed by a long tail of anodyne responses; regularly "Congratulations Such" or a string of emoji. A month ago, an old [younger!] binfo friend, James McInerney, posted onn LinkedIn that he'd been elected Fellow of the European Academy of Microbiology (EAM). I took him at his word [but found no online evidence of his change in status] and updated his WikiPpage to reflect his elevation. 

Then last week, James posted again to report that (EAM) had published the election of their N=95 new 2026 Fellows, "recognising scientific excellence and long-standing contributions to microbiology". 40% of them are tagged bioinformatics and/or -omics. DNA genome sequencing has given Microbiology a shot in the arm, in the same way that 3-D printing boosted Anatomy - another tired old 19thC discipline.

There are four from the People's Republic of Cork on the EAM2026 list (Gerard Clarke - John Cryan - Fergal O'Gara - Paul O'Toole) plus James McInerney of whom we treat. But also Diarmaid Hughes [R - some years ago] who was in my year in college 50 years ago. Hughes diaspora'ed himself to Uppsala in Sweden when there were no futures in Ireland during the 1980s. And never came back, except at Christmas when/where I'd often meet him over wine-and-cheese at alumnevents. We also spend the 80s away: 1979-1983 in Boston + 1983-1990 in Newcastle upon Tyne, but were fortunate to be able to return in 1990. And get a foot-hold here before the Celtic Tiger boomed and then bust and made immigration so very difficult for ordinary folk.

I posted the EAM multi-Fellow news to the Binformatics in Ireland listserv as leaven from its intermittent traffic announcing job opportunities [still usually abroad] which seems an appropriate vehicle to recognise these significant achievements and propagate the news. LinkedIn, not so much? And you may be sure that Ireland of the Partiarchs will claim McInerney and Hughes and get a proxy glow from their success despite having abandoned them for the decades when it mattered.

A glancing stream of photons.

On Thursday last week, I was crossing our lane when I was hailed by one of our many hikers. Terry Platt was doing a wee recce because one of the arrows in his quiver is guiding groups of walkers from their city stews into the wilderness of County Carlow. He was planning, on Saturday, to Summit Knockroe with a dozen or score of folk under his banner. 

"To whom should I apply for access to the neolithic art . . . and, errrm, where is it?"

I recited my script "According to the Land Registry, we own the land (and the lane on which we stand) but everyone owns the heritage. Usual countryside rules apply: don't leave gates open if you meet them closed; don't annoy the sheep; no dogs for pref, but absolutely no unleashed dogs" And with that I took him down the field to show him The Ringstone. It was quite disappointing because the sun was blasting the face of the stone making a blinding blur of the detailing.

Come Saturday, I was up betimes, ready for the third day on the trot with good sunshine forecast.  I checked my notes on the orientation of the Ringstone: 112° = ESE. Then consulted the almanac to ask 
Q. when would nicely oblique sunlight illuminate the runes to perfection?
A. That would be Now! At 08:55 on the Spring Equinox, the sun has a bearing of 118°.
Accordingly, I scrabbled up my devices and trotted through Crowe's field to strike while the photons were hot. The sheep looked up to ask "Wot, 'im again? wasn't 'e 'ere 20 minutes ago muttering to 'imself". Whatevs, I took a few snaps, picked one and emailed it for Terry to share. Because even 90 minutes later would give a much poorer show. And at this time of year, the sun sets before it gets far enough N to shine an oblique ray from the tea-time direction.

Delighted with myself. And I was able to fill in some details [Far too much TMI TMI detail, I'm sure] for Terry's walking group when they hove into view. At least one of them was on the charabanc round the holy wells gig last year. 

Later in the day, I was sitting on the stoep taking off m'boots when Martina & Dec of The Broad Arrow passed the gate and then backed up to chew the fat a bit. It turned out that the sun had been Just Right for them to pick up the Peter & Paul mark which they discovered up the hill a few years ago. Time is the key 4th dimension for getting the best out of petroglyphery

Make like a cone

More tributes to the Irish way of death last week. About four years ago a friend of ours, a bit older than me, started the process of forgetting and had been declining ever since. The trajectory was similar to that of my late lamented FiL Pat the Salt: every time they rallied it was never quite back to status quo ante the last slump. The trend was ever downwards but ziggy zaggy and unpredictable. Friend's family wanted to keep her at home, and this turned out to be possible to the very end but required A Lot of support from carers, friends and relations. In the last month, and then the last week, things took a tumble. Palliative care was triggered by the GP, and the family abroad was advised to return sooner rather than too late.

The Beloved called over on Sunday (taking my most recent batch of marzipan scones) and contributed one bedside vigil while the nuclear family caught up on sleep, messages and essential outdoor work [hens division]. TB returned with a report that their access lane was cratered: Maybe I could come along the next day to estimate how many tonnes of 804 road-stone would see it fit for end-of-life increased traffic. Obvs, we're more alert than normal to road-fails and potholes. But I did caution that, however well intentioned, visiting your own priorities and solutions on other people was not guaranteed to cause joy. The parable of My Father and the Tea-towels might be relevant.

When we arrived the next day Monday, I snapped some pics: 

. . . and, hearing a chain-saw rattling away behind the house, went to talk manly things with that part of the ménage. I airily explained that I was there pretending to be a civil engineer wrt the potholes. I am not totally incapable of reading the room and my gambit was greeted with a touch of bristle. Because, of course, their pot-holes were a known thing, indeed a tonne of 804 had been been delivered. The potholes had been filled before the Christmas, and again before Storm Chandra in Jan, but Project Pothole was at nothing until the weather dried out. Fair enough, but I did lend him my second-best mattock / azada as the optimum tool for road-works. 

Meanwhile, inside the house, end-of-life issues were riding post. The Beloved sat in for another bedside vigil while two family members went to the undertakers. I'm not sure if Team Palliative got to make even their first scoping visit because, a couple of hours after we left, The Principal left the stage. At almost exactly the same time her daughter touched down at Dublin Airport having dropped everything to fly in from England. At 10:30 that night there was a ratAtat at the door to reveal three neighbouring women. They wanted to assure the family that sandwiches (so many sandwiches) would appear the following day, the catering tea-pot would be borrowed from the village hall, extra chairs would manifest themselves . . . indeed all the necessaries which the bereaved might not have head-space or experience to take on board.

When we returned again for the wake on StPs Tuesday, the lane-lake had been drained of water and filled with gravel and the pot-holes filled! The English daughter expressed wonder and gratitude at seeing how many people had rallied to the family, bringing ham [and other] sandwiches from all over the province and/or being up to their elbows sudsing tea-cups and plates for the next round of visitors. I hastened to explain that, although it wasn't transactional, her mother had already paid it forward by her care and attention for the marginalized and the dispossessed.

Wednesday it was into town again for the humanist service of gratitude and remembrance at the pub-undertakers followed by more tea & sandwiches [other beverages available - it's a pub]. I was tasked to stand 🗼in the street to hold, for the immediate family, the two parking spots adjacent to the undertakers. They also serve who only stand and wait.

They're giving rye

Went into town last Friday forenoon to get food in for StPs weekend.  Lidl for fizzy water and block Gruyère, Aldi for toothpaste, Dunnes for fish. I don't rate Dunnes, but our Dunnes is next door to a Polski Sklep. A Polski emporium is the only place to find 100g blocks of fresh yeast and you can always be surprised by really good tomatoes or something made of cherries or cabbage. Not cherries and cabbage - that would be a bridge too weird even for me. 

I am always tempted by the array of continental bread but I am only me and I have to keep my sourdough starter frisky. So I can rarely justify a fresh bread purchase when own-self bread awaits at home.  otoh, pumpernickel is shelf-stable for half a year, so I often buy some. Last week I was presented with Two pumpernickels both alike in dignity packaging which cried out for comsumer reports. Accordingly I bought both chleb żytni pełnoziarnisty and chleb żytni pełnoziarnisty razowy and brought them home for label inspection. The difference is whole grain rye meal, water salt yeast vs whole grain rye meal, water salt barley malt extract yeast you can't really get simpler than that and it's all good.  razowy doesn't translate as 'malt extract' but rather 'one-time' [milling] or coarser grain. I have, for the moment, popped both chleby in the armageddon bunker. But _we_ shd get together sometime soon for a tasting.

I am religious about using rye-flour to nourish my starter: they say the LABs prefer it. A key part of my process is to transfer a blut of starter to the final water dosed with a a handful of whole wheat flour to e a s e their transition into a different alien challenging culture. Only later do I add strong white flour and salt and beat everything into submission. You will dance together, you will be mutually supportive and kind.

Dau.II the Foodie reports [✓✓✓] the existence of a new-to-us Georgian flat-bread the size of a medium pizza which is baked in Dublin and distributed to, at least, the Polonez chain.

Coffee and lungworms

I have an Internet parapal who fell in love with Iceland before it started to be a Sunday-paper colour-supplement destination. Not for the first time, last year, he recommended reading Halldór "Nobel 1955" Laxness. The Nobel Literature committee has put up some quite peculiar choices in the past. Winston "WWII" Churchill in 1953? Bob Dylan 2016? Four from Ireland^✞?? Why not pick a writer from a minority language?

I'm institutionalized;  I can follow recs so I hunted up the national library catalogue for the Laxness magnum opus Independent People Sjálfstætt fólk 1934/35. Well, dear reader, there is but one copy available for unaffiliated people in the whole republic. I put in a request and waited 4 months for my to turn to turn 540pp of one damn thing after the other, set ~100 years ago in deepest rural Iceland. At 225,000 words it is between "Call me Ishmael" and "and yes I said yes I will Yes." 

IP follows trials of independent sheep-farmer Guðbjartur Jónsson alias Bjartur who, in ~1900, scrapes together 20 years of savings to make the first payment on a tiny sod-house, ironically named Sumarhúsum = Summerhouses and a stretch of unforgiving tundra. By owning property [under some definitions of owning] rather than earning a shepherd's wage, he defines [and repeatedly describes] himself as one of The Independent People = equal to anyone on the island and a cut above most of them.

Bjartur and his shepherding neighbours talk as relentlessly about lungworms as Irish farmers look gloomily at the clouds anticipating hay-sopping rain. Lungworms are nematode worms such as Muellerius capillaris and Dictyocaulus filaria which travel from sheep to infected sheep causing hoose, husk, or verminous bronchitis. Nowadays farmers get atop these parasites with anthelmintics like Ivermectin. Back then the only options were prayer, woo or cull but none were notably effective when the animals had been inside, on short rations, recycling nematode eggs, all through the Winter. Ivermectin is also effective vs river-blindness . . . against Covid-19, not so much. The same Laxness shepherds, while counting coup on their number of dead ewes, drink frightening amounts of coffee.

Bjartur is so up himself with his Independence that he is appallingly casually rude to his friends-and-relations. The day after his wedding he accuses his young wife of having liaisons with other men and convinces himself that their first born daughter is not his. Nowadays, he'd get an ASD diagnosis and a script for Risperdal; in the 1900s everyone around him has to suck it up. Annie Proulx [blob] gave Independent People a puff "This funny, clever, sardonic and brilliant book . . .". And others have advised reading it as parody, in the same way as Cold Comfort Farm is a parody of loam-and-lovechild novels. 

Kolumkilli features heavily as a malevolent sprite who predates the Viking settlement of Iceland. This resonates with the historical consensus that, before Ingólfr Arnarson planted his flag, Irish monks and anchorites had scratched a living there for a long old time. Not St Colmcille, to be sure, but near enough to enter Icelandic folklore as a Black Hat.

One interesting new-to-me perspective was that WWI was a boom-time for Iceland. While the great powers were conscripting the agricultural laborers to get slaughtered in trenches, there was still a demand for mutton, wool and cod. Prices for these staples rose nicely for farmers and through them for the whole Icelandic economy. Pretty much everyone lost the run of themselves, and credit was easy. Accordingly, imported {cladding, cement, copper, corrugated-iron}fuelled a glut of McMansions across the landscape. When the boom tanked in 1920/21 lots of folk were mired in negative equity. Obvious parochial resonance with the Celtic Tiger and the Crash. And if the political Message of Independent People gets a little wearing, the narrative regularly reverts to comforting common ground: 

"It was at this point that Hrollaugur of 
Keldur turned the conversation to worms"

But what do I know. There are many other takes on Independent People at the Laxness archive 

✞Parochial Lit footnote [WB Yeats 1923 GB Shaw 1925 SB Beckett 1969 SJ Heaney 1995 only one of whom lived and died for in Ireland cf Boyle and Stokes last Friday]

Running no more

 Ronnie Delany, the fastest miler at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, died last week in the fullness of his years. Funeral mass this morning 11:00hrs in Foxrock. When I was still working in Dublin, my commute bus would go past his birthplace just across the river in Arklow. The local Chamber put up a plaque, because everyone loves a winner.

Knowing this primed me to react appropriately when I shook hands with him at at a bday party in The Institute just before Xmas 2014. Follow links in the bdayreport to see Delany run.Delany was fast, but a sports scholarship to Villanova U when he left school gave him support, training and Time to become his best self as a runner. When I met him +10 years ago, he was trolling for fit youngsters to follow him down to Villanova in their turn.

What do you do after winning Gold as a fit young chap? Deleny went on to be VP Marketing for Irish Ferries. It's a bit like Tony "Fleetfoot" O'Reilly who was A God on the rugger pitch and went on to become a multi-millionaire as CEO of Beanz Meanz Heinz. Not all sporty champs are able to parlay their ambition and success from one field to another. RIP - rest in plimsoles. And he made the front page of Wikipedia: