Pollution is an existential threat to modern society, one which endangers both human and planetary health. It includes contaminating the air with ozone, sulfur, nitrogen-containing nitrous oxides, and delicate particulate matter (PM2.5). Reduction of air pollution is a key aspect of Green Growth, which, together with attaining the goals of the Paris Agreement, could save around a million lives a year worldwide by 2050 (Rijsberman, 2019).

If you are a governmental stakeholder, civil society organization, research institute, or a concerned citizen pondering the state of the environment, the biennial Environmental Performance Index (EPI) tells an inconvenient truth regarding the trajectory of each country and its performance. The rankings provide unpolished results concerning countries and their commitments, or lack thereof, to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other complementary international agreements.

As a key finding in this year’s EPI-scoring, air quality keeps deteriorating human health in such a manner that it is considered as “…the leading environmental threat to public health” (EPI, 2018). The exposure of pollution and its particles from e.g. heavy traffic is a contributing factor. In Sweden, the transporting sector constitutes 1/3 of the total CO2 emissions.

Tempelhofer Feld is a beloved communal recreation area of Berliners. Tempelhofer Feld is not just a park. It is a park built instead of an airport. In 2008, when the almost century-old Tempelhofer airport was closed, the city of Berlin declared the centrally located, 386-hectare (!) open space for public use. Today, the area has six-kilometer cycling, skating, and jogging trail, a 2.5-hectare barbeque area, a dog-walking field covering around four hectares, and an enormous picnic area for visitors – everything we, Tbilisi citizens, can only dream of.

Lifetime is one of the most precious assets. People are paying huge amounts of money to extend their lifespans, sometimes for gaining only weeks or months. And imprisonment and the death penalty is so widely applied punishments throughout all cultures and ages because people are scared off by the prospect of losing their life.