Heroes Not Zombies

A few years ago I visited Segovia in Spain and saw all the storks which live there for part of each year. Here’s one feeding a chick….mind you that chick is looking pretty big already! The storks’ nests are huge and look pretty chaotic really. They’re built on roofs, on the tops of towers and tall trees.

If you look carefully you’ll see that each nest is constructed on a kind of wire basket. Now, I don’t know who makes the wire baskets or puts them there but I’m pretty sure it isn’t the storks! So, there’s no doubt the people of Segovia welcome these birds and help them create their homes here. Not all storks are migratory but I think these ones are. Their nests are used for many years, with each season’s storks adding to the material. In amongst a copse of trees I came across there were quite a number of large twigs and branches scattered on the ground, but I don’t know if they fell off during construction, were thrown out by some of the birds, or just fell down because the nest grew too big.

Looking at these photos again I’m reminded of some of the basic needs and drives we share with all living creatures – the need for a home and the need for food. I know there’s a lot more to human beings than that, but we are all motivated to get both food and a home….neither is optional.

Ah, you might say, but some people are nomadic. That’s true, but nomads have “homes” too, they just take them with them, or build new ones wherever they settle for a bit.

We humans are apparently the most highly developed species on the planet. Don’t you think we could manage to provide both home and food to every single human being? Is that beyond us? Or do we have the means, but not the motivation?

When I consider this pandemic I’m struck by the importance of both home and food. If we had better housing, less densely occupied and less densely clustered together, don’t you think it would be harder for an epidemic to become a pandemic? In France, it’s been striking that most of the infections have been in cities with populations greater than 100,000 people – mainly the cities of the “Grand Est” – Paris, Lyon, Marseilles. Incidentally I read a study recently which surveyed populations for life satisfaction and the highest rates were in those who lived in cities or towns of less than 100,000 people.

The second striking feature has been about food – on the one hand, the difficulties faced by many families in getting enough food, because so many people live in precarious conditions, with hardly enough money to get to the end of each normal month. When a crisis comes along, they are hit the hardest. Another aspect of food is the contribution of obesity to the incidence of severe COVID-19 disease. Obesity is a true pandemic, and unless it is tackled by addressing poverty, well-being, inequality and the industrialised agriculture and food production systems of our societies I don’t know how it’s going to be resolved – certainly not by fat-shaming and hectoring people to eat less and move more!

Is it beyond our abilities and/or our will to create more robust, healthier, happier societies by at least dealing with these two key needs…..the need for decent homes and the need for nutritious food?

Oh, and just so you don’t forget what this is all about……

Let’s do this for the babies, the children, the chicks!