It’s really only been not much more than a century since “great stinks” caused tremendous disruptions of daily life across major world cities. Lack of sufficient public sanitation, open sewers, abattoirs, and a host of other elements of those times would combine with seasonal weather patterns and other phenomena to produce a level of stench that could not only cause people to alter the activities, they could – and in some cases did – literally bring the activities of governments to a halt.
For those unfamiliar with the Great Stink of 1858, it was essentially the “perfect storm” of a human (and other) waste polluted Thames River combining with a blisteringly hot July and August to produce an incapacitating stench throughout the city of London. Londoners rarely left their homes in order to avoid the wretch-inducing smell. Basic elements of civic government came to a near stand-still. And people at all levels of society called for something to be done.
A social media message from the Oregon Department of Forestry about the coïncidence of the expected eclipse-viewing tourist deluge with the peak of the state’s wildfire season got me thinking about just how wildfires effect both ecosystems as well as economies. However a wildfire in central Oregon is not the same type of event as, say, a wildfire in Nebraska, or in southern California, for that matter.
Written by Paul Waring and Martin Townsend, and illustrated by Richard Lewington, this forthcoming third edition of the “Field Guide to Moths of Great Britain and Ireland” promises to be fully revised, updated, and restructured.