Stuff YOU Should Know
Volcano Eruption Claims Fifteen Lives
Last week, at least fifteen people were killed and fourteen more severely injured when a volcano exploded on an island off the coast of New Zealand. It is understood that they perished from the heat, ash, and toxic gases that were released by the eruption.
So why were 47 people on White Island that day, when volcanologists had already predicted dangerous conditions there and locals said they feared the possibility of an eruption? White Island Tours regularly gives tours of the island. In fact, they took roughly 18,000 tourists there last year alone. At the time of last week’s tragedy, the island was under a Level 2 volcanic alert (out of a possible five levels). But White Island Tours argues that Level 2 is still considered “safe,” and that they have often transported tourists there in those conditions.
The island itself is considered a living being and an ancestor by the local indigenous tribe, which views it as a violation that companies make money off of giving tours of the sacred place. Some of these believers see the fatal eruption as a sign of the volcano protesting human trespassing and lack of respect for misusing the island. Yet tourism is a strong component of the economy for the area. Aside from the tragedy of the deaths, the eruption might also spell doom for the local tourism industry, at least for the time being.
The volcano remains active and dangerous. But rescue teams have still been able to retrieve several bodies. Two remain missing, despite searches of the island and the surrounding waters. Ten survivors are currently in critical condition.
Dig Deeper To honor those who perished on White Island, use Internet resources to compile a list of the names and ages of the fifteen victims.
Word of the Year
Every year, Merriam-Webster–the dictionary people–announces a Word of the Year. Can you guess 2019’s? No, it’s not “impeach,” or even “quid pro quo”: it’s “they.”
But why? Because that simple little word has recently come to take on a new, and culturally significant, meaning. Traditionally, “they” has been used as a gender-neutral pronoun to signify two or more people, such as in the sentence, “My friends told me that they are going to a party.” But in the past few years, as our cultural understanding of the spectrum of gender identity and human sexuality continues to grow, “they” has also started to represent a single person with a nonbinary gender identity (meaning, someone who does not identify as simply “male” or “female”). So in September, Merriam-Webster expanded the definition of the word to include this new meaning. Both the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Associated Press (AP) have also agreed that “they” is correct to use in order to avoid making assumptions about gender.
It is important to remember that language is power. It has the ability to determine our cultural norms and hierarchies. For example, think about how just a generation ago, it was acceptable for virtually all books and media to use the pronoun “he” to refer to both men and women. That’s not the case anymore. Language to evolve over time to reflect cultural changes–and why one little pronoun can mean so much to so many people.
Dig Deeper The word “the” was also one of Merriam-Webster’s 2019 words of the year. Why?
2019 Sugar Production Not So Sweet
It’s no secret that Americans like sugar. In fact, each of us consumes about 152 pounds of it per year–or about three pounds per week. But now, the country’s sugar supply is being threatened. Half of the sugar in the United States comes from sugar beets. But 2019 was a terrible year for the beet crop. Widespread flooding and extreme cold devastated thousands of acres of crops across the Midwest. What this means is that the beet harvest is down about 10% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has also predicted that the amount of sugar the country has on hand could drop to its lowest level in at least twenty years.
Does this mean that you’ll have to give up your favorite sugary snacks and soft drinks? Don’t panic yet. There’s still plenty of sugar in other places, such as Brazil, Mexico, and Thailand. The problem is that currently, the U.S. has strict tariffs in place that raise the price of foreign sugar to encourage people to buy their sugar from U.S. farmers. So it’s a matter of getting the federal government to relax some of these tariffs and allow a greater amount of imported sugar to meet the U.S. demand. And that’s no small amount: it’s estimated that the U.S. will need to import almost 4 million tons of sugar this year to satisfy demand, the most that the U.S. has imported since 1981.
Dig Deeper How much sugar do you consume every day? For one day, make a list of every product you eat that contains sugar. Were you surprised by what you found?
Buttigieg Reveals Client List
You may think that the first job you get right out of school doesn’t matter much. But it could if you later decide to run for president. That’s a lesson that was learned recently by Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. After college, Buttigieg took a job with McKinsey & Company, a corporate consulting firm. He was employed there from 2007 to 2010 as a junior consultant. Recently, he has come under attack from fellow Democrats for the kind of work he did at McKinsey, including helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) save money on their detention centers. McKinsey is linked with several other companies that have been involved in costly scandals in places such as South Africa and Mongolia.
Buttigieg had signed a nondisclosure agreement with McKinsey, meaning that he couldn’t reveal his client list. But earlier this month, after being accused of a lack of transparency, the candidate was released from that agreement by McKinsey & Company. Then Buttigieg went public with his client list. It includes companies such as Best Buy, as well as government entities like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy, and the Defense Department. But Buttigieg claims that his work there mostly amounted to research.
To further prove his commitment to transparency, Buttigieg also released a list of his major campaign donors, as well as twelve years of his personal tax returns. So far, he has raised more money than all other Democratic candidates except for Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, though unlike them, he has faced criticism for being willing to accept funds from big donors and corporations.