Climate change has a severe impact on sustainable food production. The OECD reports annually on the evolution of volumes of production and monitors the resources and subsidies allocated to the agricultural sector of the economy. The sector and the whole nutrition chain are frequently perceived as a major driver of shrinkflation, greedflation and cheatflation.
Changes need to be introduced with a medium and long-term perspective in order to allow for smooth adaptations of the sectors involved and to avoid so-called hog cycles.
Most economic debate is focused on the quantity of production. The loss of production due to climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine has been and continues to be substantial causing starvation and premature deaths. Another issue is the lower quality of food due to droughts. Repeated events call for adaptations. Certainly the adaptation of more resistant crops is part of the answer. However, the other side of the same coin consists in the consumer’s readiness to buy products that suffered during a drought. Just as the reduction of fertilizers and less water in the production of droughts reduces the size of fruit, for example, we, the consumers will be systematically challenged in our purchasing habits of fresh food.
Price-sensitive consumers will have to choose the products that have reduced prices due to drought quality loss. Other consumers may choose the drought affected product if a “resilience message” is attached to such products. Solidarity with climate affected farmers, just like bio-farmers’ products in ecological production, opens up another perspective to more sustainable consumption and farming. 
Corridorisation Connectivity
In some cities, “I love Paris” (Jazz Song), we admire the “breath-taking” large corridors, right in the centre of the city. This has been the outcome of the urban planning in the 18th century. Haussmann designed large parts of Paris with huge corridors despite the medieval narrow streets in some of the arrondisements”. Ease of traffic, fewer riots and representative housing became the new mantra of urban planning and superb boulevards.
In the 21st century it is about time to question the notion and social process of corridorisation. This has been accomplished in a paper by Fatima Tassadq et al. (2025). Modern infrastructure like fibre-optic cables, energy or water networks are easiest to deploy in urban spaces with large corridors than the complex narrow inner cities with supposition of different kinds of network layers. The grand ideas of the 18th century should be questioned from time to time and some districts that have escaped the corridorisation might well have a particular charm about them, maybe just because they seem to escape the rational approach of making and structuring space by means of large corridors. Large corridors separate city districts and they are a major driving force of gentrification.
The rationality of corridors has some roots in maths or physics of complexity. A recent paper by Shanshan Wang et al. (2024) reports the surprising finding that the transport corridors in several cities across the globe allow for a 1.3 times the distance of transport networks compared to the so-called direct linear “bird’s flight line”. Hence, corridorisation is (has been) a rather pervasively applied model of urban planning.
Alternative approaches advocate in favor of the 15-minutes walking distance city. All amenities like shops, schools, maybe work and services should be reachable within a 15 minutes walk. This does include “walking corridors” that facilitate (social) connectivity in inner cities. Cyclists also claim their corridors or fast lanes across cities, which underlines the pertinence to take corridorisation seriously and apply the concept with care.
In any case, social connectivity is key. The big social media platforms operate similar to the traffic infrastructure in the 21st century and provide huge corridors to knowledge and people. We only realize this once a service (for example tiktok) or the internet altogether gets disconnected. We have moved from (social) categorisation to (social) corridorisation as technology and rationalisation have taken the upper hand to structure our (social) lives. 
Californication
In a song by the „Red Hot Chili Peppers“ the term californication appeared for the first time as far as I remember. This song is rather critical of the superficial californian way of life. The belief in the dream that you may get rich quickly in California has suffered another blow wit the thousands of homes burned in the wild fires in January 2025. Dry and arid areas are spreading and the lack of water makes it very hard for firefighters to protect homes, particularly in difficult to reach valleys. Stormy weather adds to the speed of fire spreading. All these elements are predictable additional risk of climate change. Californication is the old and new word to describe a trend of acceptance of increasing climate risks by at the same time neglect of environmental precaution. Hollywood is just around the corner there and the film industry might come up with some other narratives than just the previous californian dream. Get rich fast, then run away. Sustainability is a more difficult concept and yet it keeps getting more and more attention. 
Aridification
Man made climate change and local policies increase speed of aridification (Link). It is not only the Sahara desert that is spreading out, but the lake Aral is another horrible example of the disrespect mankind attributes to its own resources of living. As more regions become arid due to our faults and long term consequences of industrialization we provoke human resettlement of an increasing scale. Water resources are and have been for centuries the major reason for people to settle nearby. Aridification of the soil like in California increases the risks of wild fires. The costs associated with aridification are very high and such areas can no longer be insured through normal private insurers. In most cases poor people or countries are affected the most, but we are all likely to bear the consequences in one way or another. We will have to accept that the size of habitable areas on earth decreases while the peek demography of humans is still at least a decade away from now. Not to tackle aridification is not an option. When shall we ever learn? (Image: sketch for Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, by Navez 1819, MRBAB) 
No tobacco Sweden
Sweden is the forerunner as country with the lowest number of smokers across Europe and probably even the world with only 5% of the population 16 years and older. The success of these public health policies is due to banning smoking not only form pubs and restaurants, but also outside in the surroundings of public spaces like schools, playgrounds, train stations and sports facilities. These policies work quite well and the effects of discouraging smoking in public is reduced to a minimum rather than the normal encounter.
Health of the other persons and children passing through these areas is not the only goal. A new estimate of lost days or years due to smoking based on a study from England shows that “each cigarette smoked reduces the smoker’s life by about 20 minutes (17 for men, 22 for women, LINK to study). Of course, there is a huge variance and other work and life conditions that play an important role as well, but the broad average estimate is a nice way of talking about statistics. The basis of the estimate is for those who stop smoking and not those reducing their tobacco intake by some percentage or replacement product.
In the Belgian football stadium (image below 2024) in Brussels the No tobacco sign is well placed to make parents of children and youth understand the challenge ahead. Good resolutions are assisted by gentle regular reminders as well. 
Question Tomorrow
« Tomorrow is the question ». This is the imprint on the 8 table tennis tables in the Martin Gropius Bau 2024. As part of the Contemporary art exhibition by the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, the tables are very busy throughout the day and invite people to meet, play and greet. If tomorrow is the question, today is the answer. Is it? Maybe the answer is the day after tomorrow? Time appears to be the answer and the question. Such questions touch on basic philosophical questions about our relationship to and concept of time. Future orientation or even the belief in life after death touch upon basic religious beliefs. Intergenerational transmission is useless if there is no tomorrow or concept of tomorrow. Sustainability is most relevant if we are convinced there will be a tomorrow. Fatalists or warmongers rate today so much more than tomorrow that everything is subordinated to the urgency of now. Not easy to strike the right balance between „for now“ and „for tomorrow“. Simple financial discounting of benefits which accrue only tomorrow do not solve the urgency issue of behavioral concerns. My personal discounted value of ice cream tomorrow might be superior to ice cream now, but it is based on the tacit assumption that the shop still exists tomorrow or any other time in the future. The exhibition invites people not only to play table tennis but also to discuss the question of tomorrow across language barriers and across tables and cultures. 
Air Concept
Well yes, this is the latest fart in design and architecture. The Berlin International University of Applied Sciences composed an exhibition on “Air Architectures” which takes air seriously. The international group of 7th semester students took Air Architecture seriously and developed their ideas in the context of a curated exhibition. Nice semester project.
Air is a fundamental precondition for humans to (co-)exist. The biology of air (breathing) or the chemistry of air (fine particle matter) have been studied extensively. The physics of air flows in cities receive more attention as well in architecture. Interior design has yet a lot to contribute in the age of heat pumps and air conditioning.
Let’s think architecture from the perspective of air and air flow. Depending on our cultural background we might have very different associations with air. Indian or Chinese practices like yoga or Tai Chi teach us to take air more seriously than Western practices. Most architecture in cold countries of the northern hemisphere aim to keep air to the outside of buildings. Yet, the percentage of humidity of air is a serious concern of architecture as well. Air flow and quality then becomes a key issue of construction and architecture, somehow through the back door.
Maybe in approaching architecture we might think first of what is or has been the architect’s concept of air or aerodynamics. 100 years after the death of Gustave Eiffel and the Olympic Games in Paris, we still gain from thinking about air (not only air pollution) and its dynamics. Looking forward to the next generation of air architects.
(Image: Exhibition, Air architectures, at Berlin International, University of Applied Sciences 2024-12) 
Kids Space
Political claims to reserve more space for kids in cities have a tough time. Kindergardens or child care in general are scarce and the lobby for kids is often limited in time and extent, since it is the parents that usually are the ones to advocate while their children are small. Jointly parents and children of young age experience the tough atmosphere to find, preserve or extend the space for kids.
The Gropius Bau in Berlin has opened up an exhibition space reserved to children 3+ as part of an art project “BauBau” designed by Kertin Brätsch 2024. A colorful room and installations as “loose parts” are the starting point to delve into a real/fantastic world were kids reign. There are a few so-called “playworkers”, who accompany the endeavours, if need be. At the end of the day the room was still in pretty good shape I would say assuming that “children set the tone and decide what happens in this place”. Safe and supportive environments for children are scarce and parents are always challenges in their attention to watch out for risks of all sorts in public city spaces.
Even if the “play space” is free of charge, it takes parents or kindergarden managers to reserve the space.
An early experience of a museum from the inside is likely to have lasting effects on children and the parents. They might have fond memories of a museum as an exciting space also for them. It constitutes a nice continuation of the outdoor “radical playground” project during summer 2024.
Sociolegal Circularity
At times legal systems feel like going round in circles. Legal procedures move from one stage to the next and they may get referred back to the previous instance to resolve a particular issue or restart the procedure. This has good reasons with the aim of “doing justice”. Sociolegal circularity, however, begins before the, right at the beginning and negotiation of legislation on which all legal systems are based in democracies, that is. Hence, the legal definition of waste, recycling as part of the circular economy and society is rather crucial.
Circularity is a complex sociolegal issue as the example of PFAS in plastics demonstrate. In economic theory the existence of externalities invites profit seeking of the kind like: “the sea in large part is owned by us all and there is no price attached to the (ab)use of it. Dumb PFAS into the sea, because the costs of cleaning up will be shared by all of us”. In order to limit the extent of this economic logic, we have to rely on sociolegal processes. The precise definition of property rights and liabilities beyond the PFAS issue have to be well-defined. It is an intergenerational topic as well, not only in view of deferred payments.
Parliaments have to be rather competent to look through all the complex issues of producing and recycling of materials to make sound provisions in law including future generations. Going round in circles in parliament is yet another element of necessary condition of circularity in a rather broad sense.
The air we breathe and the water we drink have become part of this “economic externality”, which is a very internal, inside of our body kind of sociolegal affair. Who is responsible for the bad air we breathe and the contaminated water we drink? Air and water have for a long time become marketable products. The more your local water is polluted, the more we are forced to buy water. The more the air in inner cities is filled with fine dust particles, the more medical doctors, hospitals and rehabilitation facilities we need to construct.
For GDP calculations these are win-win-win situations, although they make us all worse off. Society and politics are in charge to define and redefine (yes, circles again) the legal basis with a lot of precision and scientific detail. Sociolegal circularity is key. You just have to turn it in the right direction.
(Image, Palais de Justice, Brussels view from Forest district).
Socioeconomic Circularity
Some sectors of the economy receive a lot of attention, for example sectors selling fancy cars. Other sectors, like the ones regrouped under the name of circular economy, receive much less attention and show up little in headlines. In fact, the circular economy is a great example of this. There are thousands of waste and rubbish collection, sorting and recycling centers, several hundreds of waste-to-energy plants, composting sites across the European Union. Of course, there is also a European Federation of the sector (FEAD). On the last FEAD conference in Brussels 2024 it became clear that Europe is finally waking up to the challenge of recycling costly raw materials.
The narrative concerning the sector needs to change further: what used to be subsumed as costly nuisance is in fact a potential profit center for companies and society at large. We do no longer want to import lots of raw materials from countries with dubious social and environmental records as part of our supply chains for raw materials. Time to act. This, however, is a rather complex socioeconomic challenge of circularity. The price mechanisms are not fully functional in most Member States, let alone across the EU. Additionally, the social practice to recycle varies greatly between countries. Distributional issues matter as well. It is rather obvious that dumping waste from one region/country in another one has huge implications (nuclear waste), but if one country values waste more than another one, due to innovative recycling techniques, the matter takes a marketable turn. Regulation should carefully distinguish categories of materials as we do for hazardous materials in production, consumption and for health and safety purposes of employees.
Metal, battery, cement, plastic and wood recycling pose challenges, but also opportunities to improve the European material import/export balance sheets. However, first in the circle of circularity is the use of materials. There we are clear that “less is better”. Less input of raw materials, most of which we import in the EU, reduces our dependence on other countries. This is the tricky social question of circularity. Mainstreaming of more conscious use and reuse of resources is a huge social issue, which we tend to relegate to a task for the education system. The awareness that supposed waste is also a valuable resource is spreading and the growth of the sector a business and employment opportunity for many. Circularity is the new sexy sector of the 21st century.
What have you recycled today? and myself? Well, scientific online publications. Now think of ChatGPT and the AI gold mines of 2024. There is lots of value in recycling.
(Image FEAD conference Brussels, 2024) 