Wordle, developed by Josh Wardle in 2013 and sold to The New York Times in 2022, is a word game involving guessing the presence and placement of letters in a word to eventually guess the entire word. Since its development, Wordle has become one of the most popular online games, becoming especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Recently, NYT released a new addition to the Wordle game, allowing players to create their own puzzles to share with peers. Using words closely relating back to sustainability, we decided to take this opportunity to spread more information.
Try each Wordle, then scroll down to read more about each word.
"EARTH"
The Earth, the third planet from the Sun. Our home planet. Our only truly habitable planet in our solar system. Over 8 billion humans live on the Earth, and this number is projected to only continue to grow. Maintaining our planet is not only important for one another to live a life of higher quality; if we wish to have a planet to live on, we must take care of our home planet.
"SOLAR"
Solar energy, one of a few renewable energy sources available. Renewable energy, in contrast to burning fuel like gas or diesel, utilizes energy created from sources that cannot depreciate, and are therefore abundantly available to those who can take advantage of them. Solar energy is one of the most popular, well-known, and most socially accepted methods of renewable energy because of its social and personal benefits; solar panels on homes owned by individuals, for example, send power through the grid in reverse throughout the day to both reduce the collective load on the power grid and nearly if not entirely eliminate that individual's load.
"ENERGY"
Throughout every moment of the day, everything uses energy. From the electricity someone uses to charge their phone, heat their water, and turn on their lights, to the gasoline they burn to get to the supermarket, to the solar energy plants use to photosynthesize, to the heat ice absorbs when it melts; everything, everywhere, requires energy.
"REDUCE"
Reducing consumption as a whole is key to sustainability, and a key reason why renewable energy is so important; if we do not reduce our usage of non-renewable energy sources, we will eventually run out of them. Reducing energy consumption isn't the only thing we can reduce; buying meals with smaller portions to avoid leftover food going bad, reducing pollution and gas consumption by carpooling or using public transport, and reducing the amount of materials we use which are harmful to the environment (e.g. plastics) are just a few key examples.
"REUSE"
Reusing goes hand-in-hand with reducing; to truly reduce, we have to start reusing, too. This is another spot where renewable energy comes into play; instead of overusing non-renewable energy sources, we can further utilize renewable sources, reusing solar panels for example to generate more electricity. There are so many ways to reuse within a community; for example, donating old shirts or finding different ways to wear them instead of throwing them away, upcycling old furniture and appliances that are still mechanically intact instead of leaving them in landfills, and recycling plastics to be reused later.