Tag: changed

How Youth Have Changed The Climate Movement
Journalism

How Youth Have Changed The Climate Movement

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children,” affirms the Oglala-Sioux version of a belief common to several indigenous cultures. To David Brower, the “archdruid” founder of Friends of the Earth, and other environmentalists, “stealing it from our children” better characterizes modern humans’ degradation of the earth. The only hope, Brower declared nearly 50 years ago, is “what young people can do before older people tell them it’s impossible.” The youth-led climate strikes in September that drew some 4 million marchers worldwide demand a far broader concept of democracy if the environmental goals they advocate are to be won. The climate-strike revolution represents a huge new step for human rights that expands hierarchical oppressions to include the dim...
American Suburbs And Their Politics Has Radically Changed Over The Decades
POLITICS

American Suburbs And Their Politics Has Radically Changed Over The Decades

Suburban voters in a number of areas are considered critical swing voters. The growing political stakes reflect the dramatic changes that have happened in American suburbia in recent years, says Dr. Jan Nijman, director and distinguished university professor at the Urban Studies Institute, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. He edited the book, “The Life of North American Suburbs,” which examines how the once homogeneous suburbs have become far more diverse and varied from one other. There is a world of difference even in suburbs that are relatively close to each other. Three major trends converge in suburbs The United States was the birthplace of the 20th-century suburb. After World War II, the archetypal “sitcom” suburb of the 1950s – white, middle-class ho...
Systems For Managing E-Waste Aren’t Keeping Up – Consumer Electronics Have Changed A Lot In 20 Years
TECHNOLOGY

Systems For Managing E-Waste Aren’t Keeping Up – Consumer Electronics Have Changed A Lot In 20 Years

It’s hard to imagine navigating modern life without a mobile phone in hand. Computers, tablets and smartphones have transformed how we communicate, work, learn, share news and entertain ourselves. They became even more essential when the COVID-19 pandemic moved classes, meetings and social connections online. But few people realize that our reliance on electronics comes with steep environmental costs, from mining minerals to disposing of used devices. Consumers can’t resist faster products with more storage and better cameras, but constant upgrades have created a growing global waste challenge. In 2019 alone, people discarded 53 million metric tons of electronic waste. In our work as sustainability researchers, we study how consumer behavior and technological innovations influence the pr...
Lawmakers keen to break up ‘big tech’ like Amazon and Google need to realize the world has changed a lot since Microsoft and Standard Oil
BUSINESS

Lawmakers keen to break up ‘big tech’ like Amazon and Google need to realize the world has changed a lot since Microsoft and Standard Oil

Big tech is back in the spotlight. The chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are testifying before Congress on July 29 to defend their market dominance from accusations they’re stifling rivals. Lawmakers and regulators are increasingly talking about antitrust action and possibly breaking the companies up into smaller pieces. I study the effects of digital technologies on lives and livelihoods across 90 countries. I believe advocates of breaking up big technology companies, as well as opponents, are both falling prey to some serious myths and misconceptions. Myth 1: Comparing Google with Standard Oil Arguments for and against antitrust action often use earlier cases as reference points. The massive 19th-century monopoly Standard Oil, for example, has been referred to as ...
Spinster, old maid or self-partnered – why words for single women have changed through time
LIFESTYLE

Spinster, old maid or self-partnered – why words for single women have changed through time

In a recent interview with Vogue, actress Emma Watson opened up about being a single 30-year-old woman. Instead of calling herself single, however, she used the word “self-partnered.” I’ve studied and written about the history of single women, and this is the first time I am aware of “self-partnered” being used. We’ll see if it catches on, but if it does, it will join the ever-growing list of words used to describe single women of a certain age. Women who were once called spinsters eventually started being called old maids. In 17th-century New England, there were also words like “thornback” – a sea skate covered with thorny spines – used to describe single women older than 25. Attitudes toward single women have repeatedly shifted – and part of that attitude shift is reflected in the nam...
Oprah’s Book Club Changed the Game and Created a New World for Black Readers
IN OTHER NEWS

Oprah’s Book Club Changed the Game and Created a New World for Black Readers

When Colson Whitehead got the call, he’d just landed in North Carolina to do a reading at Duke. He was still on the plane when, he told the Guardian, “I called [my agent] back and she said, ‘Oprah.’ I said, ‘Shut the front door,’ because I didn’t want to curse. She said, ‘Oprah book club.’ I said, ‘Motherfucker.’” Whitehead’s sixth novel, The Underground Railroad, getting chosen by Oprah was a door opening, or really more one blasting open—and Whitehead clearly knew it. Oprah’s stamp of approval on your book can make your career, massively boost your book sales, and get your book into the mainstream like really nothing else can, even a Nobel Prize. I mean, look at Toni Morrison. While I want to be clear that she is a literary genius whose impact was immense long before she got popular att...