The Social Business #60
As the snow melts after a week of hard frost, reminders of the sheer beauty of the natural world, and of the real user hierarchy on our streets.
What keeps you going?
What, despite everything that's going on in the world, uplifts you? Reminds you why you do what you do?
For me, it's being outdoors. And it's being reminded of the beauty of the natural world.
I was out for a walk on Sunday, not far from home. It was a cold afternoon, with last week's snow deep on the ground and barely a soul around. It was approaching dusk. And then we spotted some movement in the distance. A barn owl.
We watched for around 20 minutes, as it slowly made its way down the path that we were following too. Statue-still in a tree. Then a short, silent swoop to the next tree, with us moving quietly, slowly, behind. Suddenly it swooped to the ground - small mammals don't stand a chance against a predator as silent and as skilled as a barn owl. Then off it finally flew, mobbed by a crow that had been keeping an eye on proceedings, just as we had.
What an absolute privilege to witness such a beautiful bird. A beautiful moment in itself, but also a reminder of what it is we're fighting for, when we do all we can to protect our precious shared home.
Over the last ten days, we’ve had our coldest spell of Winter weather for a few years.
That might explain why the Barn Owl was so active during daylight hours - perhaps food has been harder to come by.
For us humans, it’s been pretty treacherous underfoot, with significant snowfall followed by a week of hard frosts.
Within 24 hours, most main roads were cleared, and over the next few days many side streets saw a visit from the gritter lorry.
Not so for our pavements.
It’s offered a clear reminder of whose journeys are valued most. And, despite whatever you might hear, a reminder that our cities are largely still built around facilitating and prioritising car use.
I’ve taken a keen interest in transport issues in Leeds over the years - and I’ve campaigned and lobbied hard for there to be more of a focus on making it easier and more enjoyable for more people to make more of their journeys by foot, bike or bus.
A few years ago, my local paper asked me to share some thoughts on how to improve things in a city that’s well known for its traffic jams and lack of a mass transit system.
I suggested a headline that I thought might invite a few more people to read what I had to say.
My point was that a city that makes it easier for people not to drive also makes it easier for people who, for whatever reason, are making a journey that day by car.
It was an attempt to challenge the “war on the motorist” narrative that was - and still is - pretty dominant both here and elsewhere. (This podcast explores these themes brilliantly).
We’re led to believe that it’s car drivers who are hard done to in our cities. When, in reality, most of our cities, and certainly the one I live in, have for many years mostly been designed to prioritise cars.
My week of trying desperately not to fall over on treacherous pavements - or - equally risky - walking in the road - offered a true reminder of the real “road user hierarchy”. Us pedestrians knew our place.
Of course, solving this problem isn’t easy. Council budgets are cut right to the bone, and there isn’t an army of staff ready and waiting to grit pavements on the occasional days it snows heavily. And treating pavements is undoubtedly more complicated and time-consuming than sending gritter trucks out to treat roads.
But there has to be a better way, surely?
Building community resilience
As people who’ve struggled to stay upright on frozen pavements (and even more importantly those who’ve been effectively housebound for a week) will agree - sorting this problem out matters.
It also points to a bigger issue - around how we become more resilient in the face of extreme weather events - which are happening more regularly and with greater severity because of the climate crisis.
We’re going to have to get used to more lengthy periods of frost, violent storms, flooding and extreme heat.
We need to continue to do all we can to push for the big societal changes that are needed to keep the rise in average global temperatures at safer levels.
But we also need to continue to learn how to adapt, and cope better with what’s coming our way.
Maybe treacherous pavements provide us with a case study of how things could be different?
I’d suggest a society that can effectively respond to extreme weather events needs a much better funded public sector - and infrastructure that’s resilient enough to deal with weather extremes.
And we need better information - and warning systems - too.
But that won’t be enough. We need much more collaborative, community focused solutions.
Reflecting on the last ten days here, it was clear from the weather forecast what was going to happen. Heavy snow, followed by a week of hard frosts.
Maybe we could all get better in dealing with situations like this? Street-level action by neighbours - to clear and grit pavements before they freeze up? Supported by the public sector - perhaps by providing local drop-offs of grit, or funding half a dozen snow shovels per 100 homes?
What matters - and again this is relevant in the wider response to the climate crisis - is that we’re not just left to deal with all of this on our own.
The last 15 years of “Big Society” etc has largely been about deflecting attention from the destruction of public services - whilst passing the buck to citizens. Our collective response to the climate emergency - and the extreme weather events that are becoming more common - needs to be much more collaborative, and well-resourced.
You cover a lot of (frozen) ground in this. What about the savings to the NHS for setting aside budget for clearing frozen pavements? And maybe we should all be issued with citizens shovel. Could come in handy for collaborative action.