This week we revealed an inventory of 9 international buzzwords that may doubtless be within the headlines of 2023. Some undoubtedly sound new(ish) — like polycrisis, referring to the overlapping crises that the world is going through. Others are historical — like poverty, which is on the rise once more due to the pandemic, conflicts, local weather change and extra.

We requested you to appoint extra buzzwords for 2023. Thanks to all who despatched in contributions. Here are 5 extra phrases to look at for within the yr forward.

Elite-directed progress

Savanna Schuermann, a lecturer within the anthropology division at San Diego State University, proposes:

“One buzzword or concept I see missing from your piece is ‘elite-directed growth.’

The problems you write about in the story — poverty, climate change, child wasting — stem from the same cultural cause. Power has become concentrated among elites — decision makers who make decisions that benefit themselves but are maladaptive for the population and environment (“maladaptation” could be a buzzword too) because these decision makers are insulated from the impacts of their policies. So they are either unaware of the adverse human consequences their policies have or they don’t care.”

Microplastics

Those tiny bits of plastic — some too small to be seen with the bare eye — are popping up everywhere in the globe, in nature and in people, elevating issues about their affect on each the atmosphere and well being. The small items of plastic particles can come from many sources — because of industrial waste in addition to from packaging, ropes, bottles and clothes. Last yr, NPR wrote a few study that even recognized microplastics within the lungs of residing individuals, including that “the plastics have beforehand been present in human blood, excrement and within the depths of the ocean.”

Submitted by H. Keifer

Precariat

Someone who lives precariously, who doesn’t reside in safety. Wikipedia notes that the phrase precariat is “a portmanteau merging precarious with proletariat.” It can be utilized in quite a lot of contexts. “Migrants make up a large share of the world’s precariat. They are a cause of its growth and in danger of becoming its primary victims, demonized and made the scapegoat of problems not of their making,” based on the e book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. And, in 2016, NPR wrote about “the ill-paid temps and contingent employees that some have known as the ‘precariat.’ “

Submitted by Peter Ciarrochi

Solastalgia

Solastalgia is, based on Wikipedia and different sources, “a neologism, formed by the combination of the Latin words sōlācium (comfort) and the Greek root -algia (pain, suffering, grief), that describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change.” NPR used this time period in a narrative describing the emotional reaction of Arizonans who had to flee their homes due to a lightning-sparked wildfire. It has to do with “a sense that you’re losing your home, even though you haven’t left it. Just the anticipation of a natural disaster can produce its own kind of sadness called solastalgia.”

Submitted by Clara Sutherland

Superabundance

The phrase itself is rather a lot prefer it sounds. Webster’s says: “an amount or supply more than sufficient to meet one’s needs.” The libertarian assume tank Cato Institute makes use of the time period in what it calls a “controversial and counterintuitive” new e book, Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet. The thesis: “Population growth and freedom to innovate make Earth’s resources more, not less, abundant.”

Submitted by Jonathan Babiak