Category: Environment

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Dysprosium 66

Dysprosium figures as Nr. 66 in the periodic table (short: Dy). This metal was given this Greek name, which translates to “hard to get”. Although more common than gold on earth, Dysprosium is part of the so-called rare earths on earth. Since it is very temperature resistant before becoming fluid and at the same time having good isolation properties, for example against radiation in combination with lead, the nuclear energy industry has a definite use case.
Additionally, wind turbines, electric vehicles and some smart phones use these characteristics of the metal only known to us since the late 19th century.
The major exploitation happens in China and, therefore, the recent tariffs have complicated the trading. Prices tend to rise and products that contain Dysprosium are likely to become more expensive. However, there is the other side of the coin, which means recycling and reuse of Dysprosium is also more interesting to companies. Hence, the price increase will likely enhance circularity of the metal from obsolete products into newer ones. In this respect it is good news that smartphones receive longer updates of their operating systems and security as of 2025-6-20 in the EU. This will also reduce the amount of rare earths needed in the production of the rapidly changing technical specifications of smart phones and tablets. Repairing the devices makes more economic sense before “programmed” obsolescence.
(Image: extract from Willem van der Vliet (attributed), The money counter. early 17th century, Brussels MRBAB).

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Spring Newborn

For many species spring is the time for newborns to enter into life. Pigeons in the neighborhood have completed the breeding phase and they called upon the newborn to crack the shell open. Nourishment is already abundant in the surroundings and parents appear to be impatient to quit the guarding of their offsprings. Time for the next generation to take over a similar role soon.
Pigeons don’t ask questions about fertility. They reproduce in abundance if the environmental conditions are alright.
Human beings are a danger for them as some feed them well, but others defend their territory, housing or living space against any intrusion by pigeons. Compromises are not easy to accomplish.
Fans of the song writer Georg Kreissler keep humming with dark humor: „Geh‘n wir Tauben vergiften im Park …“. The struggle for survival of species has changed in kind and we are, more than ever, responsible for the living conditions of other species as well.

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Own Production

The 21st century has seen many innovations. Solar energy has been around for at least 3 decades now, but the wide spread application and adoption of it through consumers has taken quite a while. Nowadays you can buy a reasonably priced solar panel in your local shop selling gardening tools and home appliances. Solar panels have moved from a niche product to become an ordinary home enhancement product. Previously, the production of energy was highly regulated and restricted to business activities. Hence as producer and consumer of your own energy you became a “prosumer” of energy. Just refrain from selling the energy to your neighbors and you will be happy monitoring your own energy production and your energy consumption throughout the day as well. Suddenly, you might make a few behavioral adjustments to your daily routine. Throughout the day when the sun is shining bright you start to think of what kind of energy consumption you might want to switch on at the time. Charging mobile phones, cooking meals and washing are the obvious candidates that do the trick. Charging a battery of a bicycle(s) is also a good idea. The excursion of the evening or cycling to work the next few days is feasible with this as well. There is a slight danger to check the energy production frequently to optimize the return on your investment. In this case it might be expedient to invest also in a battery to store the energy  for a longer time. No stress for consuming your nuggets, but initial investment costs are substantially higher, albeit prices for batteries have come down significantly in the last few months. “Prosit prosumers”.

 

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Sun power

Statistics of hours of sunshine in Germany and many European countries show an extraordinary amount of sunny days in March 2025 compared to previous years. This opens up a window of opportunity to produce electricity already in a month previously less likely to yield a lot of energy. With more likely 8 months of decent electricity production the efficiency of investments in solar energy reach break even points earlier. Time to think of expanding the share of renewable energy even further. The cost effectiveness is improving in rather unpredictable ways. Economists, of course, consider opportunity costs in this case the alternative to use oil or gas despite the higher levels of CO2 emissions. As the prices are currently lower as well, without an easily predictable trend, solar alternatives are a valid option.

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Warming consequences

The live of honey bees is rather busy and well organized. Global warming necessitates new risks and new opportunities for honey bees. The flowering season starts earlier in Europe and bees start earlier ro their collection of nectar and their service of pollination to other flowers. In early April 2025 in France near Paris we observe wild bees already in their daily routine. However, the risk of cold nights is still there, albeit those building their homes below the surface are a bit less at risk during a frosty night. Seeking a clever shelter is a good strategy for survival particularly at times of global warming. Some kinds of wild bees seem to sense this already changing homes from one season to next one. Humans remain their toughest enemies as they restrict their choices quite severely. Man-made pollution and herbicides are beyond bees’ control and cause havoc in the ecosystem of bees. Apiculture is an interesting science also for social scientists as this forerunner species of the matriarchy has evolved into a well-organized productive society. They are a bit harsh to each other and communication is rather unidirectional, but an interesting social cosmos of its own kind.

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Time Horizon

For ages human time horizons have worked as a succession of generations. With substantial population aging we have many more families where we find 4 generations alive at the same time. In nature and with respect to biodiversity the sequences of renewable have not changed much. Old trees that have been cut will take another 100 years to grow old again. Wild fires or human negligence risk big in this respect. Forests take several human generations to grow and thrive. Diversity is key there as well as many fast growing monocultures have increased risks in case of fires caused by global warming. Annual inspection of a forest that suffered a severe drought and fires is still looking dismal compared to before. (Foret de Senart, France 2025).

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Design skills

The is a huge B2C or C2B market in connection with home design and adaptations. Nowadays people are inspired by instagram, pinterest, YouTube and TikTok. Additionally, many play around with Apps to create their own images of how they would like to arrange or rearrange their home. Some have taken first steps to include measurements of their home in the design. The compatibility with professional software of the construction sector, however, is a drawback that delays or leads people to go to enterprises that take into account the prior efforts of young lay designers. It is a little bit like an own contribution in home building quite popular among new home builders to alleviate the upfront cash needed for first home acquisition. The younger generation could offer some of their “digital native” skills to bridge the gap in construction and home design. Of course, reworking and precise measurements on the location will still be required as construction has a lot of legal liability issues involved. Cooperation is a form of burden sharing to advance faster and/or with lower costs.

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La défense Végétale

Greening a metal and concrete block and buildings is a big challenge. The logic of unrealistic growth and big business has left liabilities for future generations. More vegetation in inner cities is part of our responsibility towards future generations. Therefore, urban planning has started in Paris to get rid of concrete walls and floors.

Eventually the district might have a more human touch which attracts citizens and new businesses and services. The adaptation of the infrastructure to facilitate mobility with bicycles and secured pedestrian paths has started but will take a lot of time before people adopt again these more healthy modes of transport. The big boulevards reserved for polluting transport is no longer adequate in combination with residential living spaces.

It will take a change of a whole generation to accomplish such a fundamental change. The reduced demand for office space due to more employees choosing to work from home contributes to such a change as well. Many other cities go ahead with similar changes (Copenhagen, Berlin). In combination with the „All electric society“ there are fundamental changes at work which will make inner cities more attractive again. Ease of clean transportation and other infrastructure for urban lifestyles ensures that cities remain strong points of attraction. They keep pulling people from nearby and far away towards them, if we like it or not.

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La Défense reframed

  1. The whole new business area „La Défense“ was a huge investment project with international speculators highly motivated to reap the benefits of a business location just next to Paris, which at best would even feel a little bit like being „intra muros“. However, being at La Défense you see „L’Arc de triomphe“ only quite far away and you don’t really get the impression that you are in Paris. The high rising buildings around there originally gave god reasons for expensive office space. Few residents spaces made the area uncomfortable in the evenings after office hours. After 2025 most office spaces no longer are attractive for businesses and lack behind environmental standards of the 2020s.  Many projects attempt to renovate the former office space into residential buildings with a considerable loss in the value of previous office space. For people working in the multiple shopping centers there this might be a feasible option if the rent is not excessively high. Students in transit through Paris might find this attractive as well. Families, however lack an adequate infrastructure as this area was built for an outdated business center and business model where families were believed to obstruct business efficiency. As the project developers have written off their investments over 25 years society can clean up the remaining space and repair. It will be another medium term project to re-create a convivial environment and community there as before the overriding device was make money there and run to a more human and diverse space.
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More eCooking

Cooking powered by electricity rather than fossil fuels like gas is an efficient and smart solution. Through the daily cooking activities over the course of a year the savings due to eCooking add up quite a bit. Even compared to an ordinary electric stove the eCooking by induction technology saves almost an additional 10+ percentage of energy as you heat the pot or pan directly rather than an in-between metallic element, which stores heat even after you have switched it off already for a while. In private kitchens the induction option is straightforward. In professional settings the change to induction eCooking needs careful planning. The health aspect of no burnt gas emissions in the kitchen is, however, a strong argument in favor of eCooking as well.
If we apply this logic to low-income countries and cooking in schools or other institutions as well as companies, the environmental and economic benefits add up quickly. In rural areas where no electricity grid is available or stable enough, the decentralized provision of electricity through for example solar energy creates a cost-effective alternative. In urban areas with high levels of various kinds of pollution the “clean” alternative could make a considerable difference as well.
The eCooking evidence is another pillar of the “all electric society” of the 21st century.
(Image: Rirkrit Tiravanija, untitled (Café Deutschland) and extract from “Freiheit kann man nicht simulieren“, Berlin Martin Gropius Bau, 2024-2025)

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Digital Visions

Urban planning has been digitalized for a long time. 3D modeling of places and buildings including their interiors are state of the art. As urbanization is also about investment, speculation and anticipation, digital imaging has entered the public spheres in form of cover up of building sites behind fences and in form of large digital prints for information, curiosity and advertising purposes. The inner cities are frequently an avantgarde and microcosm of societal developments. Some dream of full or total flexibility for office spaces (see image below), others experience the inner cities as the spotlight of inequality in society. The best paid executives are catered for by the worst paid delivery personnel. The photographers of the Landesarchiv Berlin, Grönboldt and Wunstorf, brought together a documentary exhibition entitled „Pixel aus Beton“, pixel made of concrete.

With a bird‘s eye view they reveal past, present and future details of how Berlin is experienced and envisioned by investors, architects and people living through the seemingly endless construction going on in the city. The keywords list as part of the exhibition creates a link to scientific literature and to the TU Center for Metropolitan Studies. Photography and even more so digital photography offers a social science perspective to the digital images exhibited. Cities are data spinning areas and a formidable place for digital visuals and visions.

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Blue Sky

In the period of romanticism the associations with a blue sky were very different from today. Getting out into the sun was a kind of privilege for the “leisure class”, of people who could afford to enjoy time outside for boating, walking or other pleasures. In our technology-driven 21st century the associations with Blue Sky are more like a technically enhanced view through for example “Windows” at the news and opinion platform or “Bluesky”.
Several scientific websites that report data on blue skies and air quality more generally across the world report indicators like ozone values O3, sun intensity, micro particles 2.5µm and 10µm, Nitrogen Dioxid NO2 to name the mostly quoted indicators. Hence, just enjoying the blue sky outside isn’t the same as it was before. People working outside in the sun or at times of a blue sky but with high air pollution levels are incurring severe medium-term health risks. The Ozon layers at very high altitudes protect our skin and eyes against high UV-radiation, but O3 on the ground is tough for eyes and lungs.
Technology has come with many blessings, but the negative effects on a global scale become also more evident. Getting used to a particular lifestyle, which produces lots of emissions of aggressive fine particles will make it more difficult to just simply enjoy a blue sky.
In consideration of all these background data with regional variations, we surely need an AI-system which we can ask for advice, whether we should go outside and enjoy the blue sky with or without respiratory mask.
Romanticism has led us all the way to Californication and dangerous enshittification of the air that surrounds us. Youth and the next generations will have very different associations with Blue Sky than we have the chance to, at least, have had.

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Greening Interiors

The greening of facades of houses is an old tradition in many western countries. The outside of a home then changes colors with seasons. The home for insects and birds feeding on them makes a small contribution to biodiversity as well. Greening interiors is a more rare instance. Of course flowers and plants can contribute a lot, but there is yet more scope to green entire walls inside your home or office.
Moss has advantages to add humidity to the air. You might like the acoustic effect as well in busy environments. Taking care of moss is not easy. Professional assistance (Link) or renting options might be a good option for office buildings. The wellness enhancing effects are also interesting for some people who susceptible to the calming effects of a more natural environment. It is a matter of care and respect for air quality that is reflected in the design using green interiors.
Circularity is another advantage of the materials. We can so a lot for biodiversity if we really wanted to even in urban spaces. Global warming will force us to think more and more, and sooner than later to make use of such innovative solutions. For the time being they remain a luxury option. For the wealthy, greening interiors is easy, it much less an option for restricted budgets and people who are obliged to focus on short-term survival. However, we have to get started with the greening of our planet again, any way.

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January Spring

The early signs of spring in Europe usually show up in March. The monthly data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) show that „average temperature over European land for January 2025 was 1.80°C, 2.51°C above the 1991-2020 average for January,“ (Link). The warming throughout January has several consequences. Vegetation starts into spring earlier. This means that people with allergies of early flowering suffer earlier during a year. Winter rest in animal lives will be shorter. The risks of droughts in some regions combined with floods in other regions is increased as well. Rockslides in the Alps and flooding in Italy and the Baltic states add to the costs of climate change. 

Western Europe, witnessed a relatively „dry January“, even for those who kept drinking alcohol throughout the month. Heating and heating costs came down a bit and friends of gardening were surprised by some early showings of flowers of spring even in Paris neighborhoods (image below) as early as the first few days in February 2025! Strange new world. It all seems to happen a bit faster than most scientists expected. Time for adaptive behavior is shortened as well.

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United by travel

The economic rationale of profit maximization privileges the construction and management of profitable connections. For train transportation this has spurred over decades the construction of new train lines between metropolitan cities or regions. Whereas connections between Paris and Brussels are abundant and expensive from central stations those living somewhere in between the 2 cities, for example in Mons, have had little chance of access to reasonably priced and fast train connections. This neglect of the in between cities is slowly changing. Sufficiently fast and reasonably priced connections allow Europe to grow together also at the margins. Public transport as alternative to car traffic across borders for „in-between cities“ will bridge the gap between the ease of travel between metropolitan an more remote areas. There is economic growth to be reaped as connected infrastructures allow for economic as well as social mobility and joint development. This is the real European challenge ahead of us and not the numerous summits without tangible results for rural and urban populations beyond metropolitan regions. For regions spanning countries, some will be finally reunited by better public transport a kind of ecological unification.

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Sustainable Food

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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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. 

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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)

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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.

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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).

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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)

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Sunny Trade

Some countries or regions struggle with trade deficits or trade surpluses, which cause worries to their partners. Eurostat publishes regularly the latest trade figures for the EU with external partners. The EU as a whole has a trade surplus in September in 2024 of € 12 billion. From January to September in 2024 the surplus accrues to 140 billion already. Overall, this is a rather sunny picture of EU trade. As we import raw materials and fossil energy mainly, the rest of the world is largely appreciating what we do with the imports, at least in an economic sense, environmental concerns tend to be neglected in such considerations.
The import statistics and figures do not capture the contribution of the sun to our energy balance sheets. We import energy from the sun almost on a daily basis and our trade statistics to not capture this, despite their huge impact on production and the fossil energy trade imbalance we report each month. Imported energy, the largest negative position in our sunny trade balance, in the EU amounts to € 20 billion per month. Harvesting more wind and solar energy as well as geothermal sources and energy storage require huge investments, but millions of Europeans are willing to contribute to this effort. With rising protectionism we should act now to avoid years of structural trade deficits in the coming years. There should already be more sun in the still sunny trade balance. To keep it that way more sunny trade will do the trick.
(Image from Eurostat, 2024-11-18, Euro area trade balance by product group in billions of €, original states in %, retrieved 2024-11-29)

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Birds again

There are many ways to have more birds again in inner cities. Less pollution and poison are part of the solution. Second, increase the food available to birds. Some plants or vegetation is more suited than the other one. Combined with the question of cooling houses in summer and more isolation in autumn and winter, the greening of facades in cities has a simple effect to provide hiding, nesting and feeding spaces for birds. Birds will discover this vegetation as their natural habitat offering relatively safe shelter and food. It is an incredibly simple way to catch 22. Your new shelter is selective in the choice of birds that it will house. Singing birds seem to value the places most. Other predators may follow. At least in late autumn and early winter the energy rich power food is a welcome addition of the diet. Nesting in spring and summer might be another option to have more birds again. We shall need many very small steps again to keep biodiversity or bring back some of it. Birds again is a small initiative.

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On Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a catchword for all sorts of undetermined occurrences, which we might have to confront. We associate economic uncertainty with the difficulty to forecast or predict the economic evolution of key indicators like inflation, GDP, CO2-emissions, energy and raw materials’ prices and availability. Even factors like increases in greed of CEOs, psychological factors like insecurity about external or internal conflicts drive these macroeconomic indicators. Micro-level features of your own stage or evolution of the life course have an impact on and will be affected by uncertainty. Employment, housing, family, or household composition are subject to high levels of uncertainty. These micro- and macro- level factors are, of course, not limited to the domain of economic phenomena. Most recently, political uncertainty has reentered the international and national sphere with the re-election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. This election outcome of the U.S. is perceived by many as increasing the overall uncertainty due to the unpredictability of political decisions and even previous treaties with the U.S. or where the U.S. is a major partner in the agreement. These economic and political uncertainties are accompanied with a perception of growing legal uncertainty even in very personal spheres of life. Last, but not least uncertainty about climate changes like heating up of the planet and more devastating flooding and droughts contribute to increased uncertainty about future developments and the need to initiate adjustment processes and the financing of those.
The individual and societal ways to cope with increased uncertainty are one of the major economic, political, legal and social issues for the coming years. The answers are likely to be found in mutual, cooperative and risk sharing arrangements. The social in society will be a major part of dealing with increased uncertainty. (Image: Extrait of Paul Klee, Seiltänzer 1923)

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Paris Vision

You got to have a vision in urban planning. Long term visions are best to then realize them step by step. The center of Paris has been restructured since the time of Haussmann at several places. The previous commercial center of Paris with « Les Halles » and the building of the commodities exchange « La Bourse de Commerce «  have been turned into a pedestrian area long ago. This axis runs nowadays from the home of the Pinault Collection to Les Halles almost to the Centre Pompidou (in the background of the image below). Whereas Les Halles is usually very popular and crowded with people the art museums are a bit less busy. Walking around in the area is offering amenities for people of all walks of life. It is an area, better called a pedestrian boulevard, where the wealthy and the poor may meet or at least pass by. Social urban planning is in high need to be considered as a vision not only for Paris, but many places and cities again. Inclusive societies also begin with a rather simple vision of togetherness putting people first.

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Move Tech

First we teach robots how to move. Next, they teach us how to move and motivate us to do more. This is not only for the elderly persons to imitate the moves and talk to AI systems, but children too will have fun and learn new tricks from robots rather than old dogs. Learning languages with an AI system is well advanced. Soon we shall walk with our artificial friend around cities and have a perfect tourist guide with us. Imagine walking in the countryside with your robot explaining you the flowers and herbs next to you. These brave new worlds are not too far off and it is up to us to be open to accept or dismiss these applications. Coaches using ball throwing machines or robots have managed to lead pupils to higher levels of practice faster than others. Motivation through move technology has undeniable advantages.