Aufrufe
vor 1 Jahr

World and Press January 1 2023

  • Text
  • Climate
  • Environment
  • Video games
  • Britain
  • Usa
  • Brexit
  • Bullying
  • Empress
Original Pressetexte aus britischen und US-amerikanischen Medien Sprachtraining, Landeskunde, Vokabelhilfen und Übungsmaterial für Fortgeschrittene Sprachniveau B2 - C2

10 Business

10 Business January 1 2023 | World and Press Britons turn to small luxuries in cost of living crisis LIPSTICK EFFECT Strong demand for beauty products such as eyeliners and mascaras, as chocolate and coffee also sell well. By Zoe Wood 1 THE SHADOWcast by the cost of living crisis has spurred a retreat into small luxuries, with Britons cheering themselves up with mood boosters such as luxury lip balms and false nails, as well as chocolate and coffee. The lipstick index, coined by Estée Lauder’s Leonard Lauder, is the idea that sales of affordable luxuries rise in economic downturns. This spending behaviour has been true during previous downturns, and the same picture is emerging again as consumers battle severe financial headwinds. 2 “We’re seeing customers treating themselves with smaller beauty luxuries to add a little extra joy to their everyday lives,” Jade Baker, the beauty buyer at the department store chain John Lewis, said. 3 The Boots managing director, Seb James, says its products are a relatively inexpensive indulgence, with customers using its Advantage loyalty card to collect points so they could treat themselves to new makeup, perfume, or skincare. “During the last recession, we experienced two things: firstly, the ‘lipstick effect’, which is the determination to continue purchasing small treats, and secondly, increased spending on own label and promotions,” he said. “These trends have returned. People might not get a new outfit, but they may get a new lipstick.” 4 The market research firm Kantar Worldpanel said that in the 12 weeks to 18 September, sales of lipstick were nearly 10% higher than last year. During the period, 310,000 new shop- pers had decided to buy lipstick, a near-20% rise that was the biggest step up since May 2021, when the increase was set against steep lockdown declines. “We are starting to see the performance of lipstick improve dramatically to correlate with the cost-of-living crisis,” Matthew Maxwell, the strategic insights director at the firm, said. … 5 While the lipstick index is an established economic indicator, Jonny Forsyth, an analyst at the market research firm Mintel, makes the case for an “indulgence index”. He said consumers were also treating themselves to posh chocolate and coffee to enjoy at home. 6 After clocking up big sales during the pandemic, the ethical chocolate brand Tony’s Cho- | Photo: Rachel Cheng/ Unsplash colonely said it was once again experiencing demand for its bars, which come in flavours such as milk pecan caramel crunch. “September was the first month this year where we saw the value of chocolate bars bought go back up again, after a really strong prior year,” Ben Greensmith, the brand’s UK country manager, said. “We might be seeing this uptick again as more people treat themselves at home.” 7 In a recent poll, nearly half of adults told Mintel it had been easier to justify eating indulgent food and drink since the COVID-19 pandemic, and among chocolate fans, 56% said eating premium bars “was a good way to boost your mood”. 8 “During COVID, a lot of people thought consumers would eat more healthily, but the reverse happened,” Forsyth said. “They indulged more because they felt psychologically under pressure and turned to comfort food.” Now, with energy bills and mortgage payments to worry about, Forsyth said people were looking for something to give them a bit of a boost during the week. “Food and drink is still relatively affordable and gives a visceral sense of pleasure and escapism. We’re already seeing it, and I think this trend will only increase through what will probably be a very dark winter,” he added. … © 2022 Guardian News and Media Ltd 0 – 1 TO TURNto s.th. zu etw. greifen — cost of living Lebenshaltungskosten — to cast a shadow (fig) e-n Schatten werfen — to spur führen zu — retreat into h.: Zurückgreifen auf — mood booster h.: Produkt, das die Stimmung hebt — to coin (an expression) (e-n Begriff) prägen — economic downturn Konjunkturabschwung — spending behaviour Ausgabeverhalten — to emerge s. abzeichnen — headwind Gegenwind 2 – 3 to treat o.s. with/to s.th. s. etw. gönnen; s.w.u. treat Luxusartikel — beauty buyer Einkäufer(in) für Kosmetik — managing director Geschäftsführer(in) — indulgence h.: kleiner Luxus; s.w.u. indulgent Genuss-; to indulge s. ungesunde Nahrung genehmigen — loyalty card Kundenkarte — skincare Hautpflegeprodukte — own label Eigenmarke 4 – 6 market research firm Marktforschungsunternehmen — to set against s.th. etw. gegenüberstellen — to correlate korrelieren — strategic insights director Leiter(in) der Strategieabteilung — economic indicator Konjunkturindikator — to make the case for (fig) plädieren für — to clock up (coll) verzeichnen — ethical fair — pecan Pekannuss — prior year Vorjahr — UK country manager Leiter(in) der Großbritanniensparte — uptick Aufwärtstrend 7 – 8 poll Umfrage — reverse Gegenteil — comfort food Essen für die Seele — mortgage Hypothek — visceral tief empfunden — escapism Realitätsflucht Colorado accepts cryptocurrency to pay taxes DIGITAL CURRENCY By Judith Kohler 1 GOV.Jared Polis said Coloradans can pay their taxes using cryptocurrency, making good on a plan he announced earlier this year. “As of right now, the state of Colorado is officially accepting cryptocurrency as a payment option for all taxes,” Polis said. “We’ve been talking about this for a while. We said we would deliver by the end of summer, and we have.” 2 Polis made the announcement Monday during a news conference that kicked off the 11th annual Denver Startup Week. He said the payment program, which began Sept. 1, is an example of Colorado being “tech-forward.” 3 Coloradans can use digital currency to pay taxes of all kinds: personal and business income, withholding, sales and use, severance, and excise fuel taxes. “The state will operate our own ledgers in dollars. Taxpayers who pay with crypto will see their transactions converted to dollars,” Polis said. 4 The Polis administration has said Colorado is the first state in the country that has started accepting cryptocurrency to pay taxes. Department of Revenue spokesman Daniel Carr said the state of Ohio had a pilot program a few years ago, but didn’t proceed with accepting the digital currency. … 5 The Colorado Department of Revenue website has been modi- fied to add cryptocurrency as a payment option when paying taxes online. People will be directed to PayPal, where they can select which cryptocurrency they want to use. The service fee is plus 1.83% of the payment amount. Tax refunds won’t be issued in cryptocurrency. 6 Carr said the volatility in the values of cryptocurrency doesn’t raise concerns about going forward with the program. “We are using PayPal Cryptocurrencies Hub to accept all payments via cryptocurrency, and they adjust for whatever the accepted cryptocurrencies values are in realtime. There is no risk to the state,” Carr said in an email. © 2022 MediaNews Group, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. | Photo: Kanchanara/Unsplash 0 – 2 CRYPTOCURRENCY Kryptowährung — Gov. = Governor — to make good on s.th. etw. einlösen; h.: etw. umsetzen — to kick off eröffnen 3 withholding tax Quellensteuer — sales and use tax Umsatz- und Gebrauchssteuer — severance tax (US) Steuer auf nicht erneuerbare, für den Export bestimmte Rohstoffe wie Öl, Gas oder Kohle — excise fuel tax Treibstoffsteuer — ledger Hauptbuch — to convert umrechnen 4 – 6 administration Regierung — Department of Revenue Finanzministerium — spokesman Sprecher — to proceed voranschreiten — to modify h.: aktualisieren — tax refund Steuerrückerstattung — to issue h.: gutschreiben — volatility Schwankungsanfälligkeit — real-time Echtzeit

World and Press | January 1 2023 Business 11 What will it take to make video games go green? CLIMATE Video games harm the environment. A climate researcher wants to fix that. mit Audiodatei und | Photo: Alex Motoc/Unsplash By Nathan Grayson 1 EARLIER this year, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Dr. Benjamin Abraham found himself gazing out at a dispiriting scene. The climate-focused researcher and author walked onto the stage for his “Making Room for Climate Justice” talk, only to be greeted by a sea of empty chairs. “I was hoping this session would be packed like the NFT ones,” he said to attendees at the time. But a presentation – even at one of the largest gatherings of game makers in the world – was always only a small part of the plan. Übungsmaterial 2 At the tail end of August, Abraham launched AfterClimate, a business intended to aid smaller game developers on their journey to decarbonization by doing the legwork of figuring out how to reduce emissions for them. Why video games, though, when industries like transportation and energy are (literally) polluting up a storm? Because at this point – with U.N. reports bearing grim tidings and extreme weather submerging one third of Pakistan in floodwater, driving millions from their homes – every bit counts. 3 “I look at the Pakistan floods, and I wish they were a surprise,” Abraham said in an interview with ‘The Washington Post.’ “But that’s exactly what scientists have been saying for decades is going to happen, and it’s going to happen to more people. … The game developers I’ve talked to are some of the most socially conscious people I’m aware of. I think they’re starting to go, ‘All right, what do we need to do?’” 4 AfterClimate offers different tiers of service depending on how ambitious developers want to get with their decarbonization efforts. To begin, the company will collect data from electricity bills, power sources, and conversations about a studio’s work/workplace to ascertain overall emissions and how they compare to similarly sized video game companies. If emissions are on the steep side, Neu! AfterClimate will then offer suggestions – for example, reducing how much a studio relies on specific power sources or switching to renewable energy in places. 5 If a developer or studio is especially committed, AfterClimate also offers a full audit of all up- and downstream emissions, including purchasing new equipment – the manufacturing and delivery of which produces emissions – and players accessing a game, which involves both drawing power on players’ ends and potentially taxing data centers. 6 “We can look at that and go, ‘What’s the full scope of that? How do we best reduce those emissions?’” said Abraham. “Is it by making hardware last longer? Is it by changing something about the way the game works? Is it shifting more and more computational power into the cloud? It might be moving into streaming games, or it might be the reverse. It depends on where people are in the world, where the players are; the whole world has varying levels of emissions intensity for the electricity we receive.” 7 Despite a firm belief that climate change became an “everybody” problem decades ago, Abraham is picking his battles. As in other industries, the heaviest hitters – the Microsofts and Sonys, in this case – are almost certainly spitting out more CO 2 than the little guys. But many of those companies are already working (slowly) toward net zero emissions targets, and according to recent GDC surveys, small teams collectively make up a large chunk of the industry. The result of this, at scale, verges on mind-boggling: Thousands of new games come out on PC and mobile platforms every month, the majority of which come from smaller teams rather than Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Tencent, or any number of other household names. 8 “Indie gaming is not going to have the same footprint as Triple-A gaming, but it will still have a footprint,” said Abraham. “And just the sheer number of people making games in the world these days is intimidating. I don’t know what the answer is for those people other than to have some kind of service they can use to help guide them to reduce emissions.” 9 The remainder of the equation, to Abraham, is simple: Big companies have resources to invest in this problem; small teams do not. That’s where AfterClimate comes in. “Game developers don’t have a whole lot of free time,” Abraham said of an industry in which overwork remains a pervasive issue at studios large and small. “So rather than having every single indie dev in the world spend a couple months figuring out what they need to do to reduce their emissions, I would be more than happy to do that for them.” … © 2022 The Washington Post Das Workbook zur Lektüre! • Spielerische Übungen zu Wortschatz, Grammatik und Leseverstehen • Niveau A1 • Lehrermaterialien und Lösungen als PDF zum Download Blinker Workbook 48 Seiten, DIN A4, Softcover ¤ 6,90 [D] | ISBN 978-3-7961-1152-5 www.sprachzeitungen.de blinker Exercise 1: Questions • Page 3–8 Task Answer the questions in full sentences. | Beantworte die Fragen in ganzen Sätzen. Help Who = Wer What = Was Where = Wo / Wohin 1. Is Blinker a little cat? 2. Is Blinker happy? 3. Who gives him food? 4. Who is looking for a home? 5. Where does Blinker run? 6. Where does Blinker look? 7. Where does Blinker stop? 0 – 1 TO GAZEout at s.th. auf etw. blicken — dispiriting entmutigend — packed voll besetzt — NFT = non-fungible token (f. austauschbar) — attendees Anwesende 2 – 3 at the tail end h.: Ende — to aid helfen — decarbonization Dekarbonisierung — to do the legwork for s.o. jdm. die Kleinarbeit abnehmen — to figure out herausfinden — industry Branche — to pollute up a storm (coll, fig) enorme Umweltverschmutzung verursachen — to bear tidings (formal) Neuigkeiten überbringen — grim düster — to submerge überschwemmen — socially conscious h.: auf das gesellschaftliche Wohl bedacht 4 – 5 tier Stufe; Ebene — power source Energiequelle — to ascertain ermitteln — on the steep side (coll) ziemlich hoch — to be especially committed s. wirklich engagieren — audit Überprüfung — up-/downstream emissions vor-/nachgelagerte E. — manufacturing Herstellung — to tax belasten — data center Datenzentrum 6 – 7 scope Umfang; Ausmaß — to shift verlagern — computational power Rechenleistung — the reverse Gegenteil — heavy hitter (fig) Schwergewicht — to spit out ausstoßen — net zero emissions Netto-Null-Emissionen — survey Gutachten — chunk Stück — at scale h.: im Verhältnis — to verge on grenzen an — mind-boggling verblüffend — household name h.: bekanntes Unternehmen 8 – 9 footprint h.: CO 2 -Fußabdruck — sheer rein — intimidating beängstigend; beeindruckend — remainder Rest — equation Gleichung — overwork Überarbeitung — pervasive weitverbreitet 8. Is the gate open? 9. Who is watering the flowers? © 2022 Carl Ed. Schünemann KG · Alle Rechte vorbehalten. 3

World and Press