A map of the United States post land-ice melt.
And that's putting it lightly.
This video by Business Insider Science (seen below) depicts exactly what our coastlines would look like if all the land ice melted. And spoiler alert: It isn't great.
Lots of European cities like, Brussels and Venice, would be basically underwater.
In Africa and the Middle East? Dakar, Accra, Jeddah — gone.
Millions of people in Asia, in cities like Mumbai, Beijing, and Tokyo, would be uprooted and have to move inland.
South America would say goodbye to cities like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.
And in the U.S., we'd watch places like Houston, San Francisco, and New York City — not to mention the entire state of Florida — slowly disappear into the sea.
All GIFs via Business Insider Science/YouTube.
Business Insider based these visuals off National Geographic's estimation that sea levels will rise 216 feet (!) if all of earth's land ice melted into our oceans.
Although ... looking at these maps, it's hard to imagine "for better" is a likely outcome for many of us.
Much of America's most populated regions would be severely affected by rising sea levels, as you'll notice exploring the map, created by Alex Tingle using data provided by NASA.
Take, for instance, the West Coast. (Goodbye, San Fran!)
Or the East Coast. (See ya, Philly!)
And the Gulf Coast. (RIP, Bourbon Street!)
How? Climate change.
As we continue to burn fossil fuels for energy and emit carbon into our atmosphere, the planet gets warmer and warmer. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means melted ice.
A study published this past September by researchers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany found that if we don't change our ways, there's definitely enough fossil fuel resources available for us to completely melt the Antarctic ice sheet.
Basically, the self-inflicted disaster you see above is certainly within the realm of possibility.
"This would not happen overnight, but the mind-boggling point is that our actions today are changing the face of planet Earth as we know it and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years to come," said lead author of the study Ricarda Winkelmann, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
If we want to stop this from happening," she says, "we need to keep coal, gas, and oil in the ground."
World leaders are finallystarting to treat climate change like the global crisis that it is — and you can help get the point across to them, too.
Check out Business Insider's video below:
This article originally appeared on 12.08.15
Bill Gates in conversation with The Times of India
The Gates children, now 20, 17 and 14, are all above the minimum age requirement to own a phone, but they are still banned from having any Apple products in the house—thanks to Gates' longtime rivalry with Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Bill Gates tasting recycled water.
Image from media.giphy.com.
While the parenting choice may seem harsh, the Gates may be onto something with delaying childhood smartphone ownership. According to the 2016 "Kids & Tech: The Evolution of Today's Digital Natives"report, the average age that a child gets their first smartphone is now 10.3 years.
"I think that age is going to trend even younger, because parents are getting tired of handing their smartphones to their kids," Stacy DeBroff, chief executive of Influence Central, told The New York Times.
James P. Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that reviews content and products for families, additionally told the Times that he too has one strict rule for his children when it comes to cellphones: They get one when they start high school and only when they've proven they have restraint. "No two kids are the same, and there's no magic number," he said. "A kid's age is not as important as his or her own responsibility or maturity level."
PBS Parents also provided a list of questions parents should answer before giving their child their first phone. Check out the entire list below:
This article originally appeared on 05.01.17
Based on the venting ( "OMG, everyone is sold out of pre-sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils!") and cries for help I'm seeing from my fellow parents on social media ("Where did you find three wide-ruled draw-and-write composition books?" — OK, I admit that was my question), a lot of our public school kiddos are being given supply lists quite similar to this one:
woman in white and multicolored floral long-sleeved mini dress with green backpackPhoto by Tamara Bellis on UnsplashSample school supply list created from actual lists I've collected. Some items have been switched between lists to protect the innocent.
While many public schools send these lists to parents, in certain states they're "requests" not "requirements" (even when not clearly presented that way) because some states cannot legally require students to provide their own school supplies.
Optional or required, however, these school supply lists are important.
I know, I know — lots of us parents have many feelings about them, like:
And we can all agree that it's not right that public school budgets are regularly slashed and aren't big enough to cover the basic necessities essential for our kids' success. (You know, like pencils.) And in some cases, budgets are misused, and that's not right, either.
black cordless headphones beside sport bottle and notebookPhoto by KOBU Agency on UnsplashBut as much as parents dread shopping for school supplies, our children's teachers probably dread having to ask.
Katie Sluiter, a mom of three and teacher of 13 years, shares in parents' frustrations about supplies — just from a different perspective. "I struggle every single August with having to ask for [supply] donations. I hate it," she says.
She'd love to stop asking parents to bring in a combined total of 800 pencils and 1,000 glue sticks and just buy them herself. But as a teacher, she simply cannot afford to do it.
"I hate that we have two full-time salaried workers in our house. ... I have an advanced degree, and we are still living paycheck to paycheck. It feels shameful to have to ask every. single. year. for donations. Teachers don't want to ask for handouts. We just want to teach."
"Teachers don't want to ask for handouts. We just want to teach." — Katie Sluiter
Nicole Johansen, a mom of two who was a teacher for 12 years, echoes Sluiter's sentiments. She cites never ending budget cuts as well as the need to stretch other funds, like PTO-raised money, further and further as the reasons supply lists exist and adds, "It is frustrating knowing that schools should be appropriately allotted funds for supplies — this said from the parent AND teacher standpoint."
So most of us are on the same page here. Class supply lists are the pits ... for everyone!
The most significant thing to remember, though, is that if your budget allows, it's important to purchase the items on the list.
If you're not purchasing the supplies, it's very likely your child's teacher will have to — with his or her own money.
Image by Thinkstock.
And we've already established that teacher salaries aren't cutting it when it comes to taking care of their families and their students.
And maybe it's not so much that teachers have to spend their own paychecks on classroom supplies, but they want to because an overwhelming majority of teachers genuinely care about their students.
"I wish all parents knew how much teachers love and sacrifice for their students," Johansen said. "Pretty much all teachers I know will be spending for their classroom despite having to cut back the grocery bill for their family."
"I wish all parents knew how much teachers love and sacrifice for their students." — Nicole Johansen
"No, we don't have to spend all that time and money on our classrooms, but it makes it a quality experience when your children have things like science experiments, books, art supplies, and a comfortable, cozy classroom environment."
woman wearing white sweaterPhoto by Yustinus Tjiuwanda on UnsplashOK, but seriously, what do they do with all of those glue sticks?!
I know I'm not the only one who opened up that list when my daughter was in first grade, choked on my coffee, and exclaimed, "THREE DOZEN GLUE STICKS?! What, are the kids eating them? [Probably. Little kids eat all kinds of gross stuff.] Are the teachers selling them for profit? [I wouldn't blame them. See above about teachers' salaries]."
Image by Thinkstock.
"We glue kids' mouths shut," Sluiter told me when I asked.
"Totally kidding. They last like 12 seconds ... [and] no matter how vigilant we are in supervising the picking up and putting away of supplies, each time we get the tub of glue sticks out, there are about three to five dead soldiers and lone caps rolling in the bottom of the bin."
(I love teachers with senses of humor!)
But back to the actual issue.
My friend Shannon summed up the class supply list conundrum perfectly, if bluntly:
She wants parents who can budget in school supplies without experiencing a financial burden to "quit complaining about some of the items being communal. Vote for politicians who will quit cutting money from schools. I don't remember my parents having to buy 20 glue sticks, but I certainly don't think any more should come out of teachers' pockets."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
This story originally appeared on 08.11.15.
“Dear Every Cashier in America: the proper response to 'thank you' is 'you're welcome,' not 'no problem.' And *you're* supposed to thank *me*"The angry tweet elicited a number of mocking responses from people on social media.
But eventually one person chimed in with a detailed and thoughtful response that just might give you pause the next time you or someone you know says, “no problem."
woman facing on white counterPhoto by Christiann Koepke on UnsplashIn a response that is going viral on Reddit, on person writing under the name “lucasnoahs" laid it all out:
Actually the “you're welcome/no problem" issue is simply a linguistics misunderstanding. Older ppl tend to say “you're welcome," younger ppl tend to say “no problem." This is because for older people the act of helping or assisting someone is seen as a task that is not expected of them, but is them doing extra, so it's them saying, “I accept your thanks because I know I deserve it."
“No problem," however, is used because younger people feel not only that helping or assisting someone is a given and expected but also that it should be stressed that you're need for help was no burden to them (even if it was).
Basically, older people think help is a gift you give, younger people think help is an expectation required of them.
The thoughtful response from “lucasnoahs" doesn't apply to everyone. After all, there are certainly a lot of people of any age group for whom acts of kindness and gestures of gratitude are “no problem."
Still, his message conveys an important idea that doing well for others does not have to be a grand gesture. It can be a simple act -- and the additional act of letting someone know that it's really no problem helps relieve any potential sense of debt or guilt the person receiving the gesture might otherwise take on.
Most of the time, doing the right thing is indeed no problem. In fact, it might be the solution to a lot of the daily problems we grapple with.
This article originally appeared on 08.15.18.