With the June 2011 update to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the English language has officially gained some new words to use when talking about the environment, and especially about the future of the planet. They start out on a somewhat pessimistic note, by adding the phrase environmentally unfriendly to refer to something or someone that causes harm to the environment. You might use this to politely refer to the actions of your neighbor who dumps his leftover house paint in the gutter, or the city dweller who drives an oversized truck that’s never been used to haul anything heavier than a briefcase.

It’s possible, however, that the huge SUV is powered by green fuel, something that is less environmentally unfriendly than fossil fuels. Some forms of biofuels can be more efficient, and electric cars are becoming more popular, but a solar-powered car is still far from common.

City dwellers have started going back to more rural areas lately, at least in the Western countries, with the younger generation unable to find the jobs they used to be able to get. Many people now want to be able to raise their own gardens and small animals for food, and some places see a reversal of the migration to the cities during the industrial age. The new word deurbanization refers to this trend, where people are moving away from cities and back to smaller towns.

Some people believe that no matter how many problems the planet is currently happening (either environmentally or politically) there’s a good chance that technology will continue to evolve, allowing doctors to cure currently-incurable diseases, and give people very long lives. A few of these people have become cryonauts; that is, they have had their bodies cryogenically preserved – frozen – in the hopes that they can be revived in the future to take advantage of these technological advances.

Other people are giving up on the hope that humanity can keep the planet alive, and fear that soon the only way to feed people will be by autotrophy, the ability to produce food by utilizing inorganic compounds. If the oceans become too warm, the soil sterile from chemicals, and the air thick with pollution, perhaps only organisms that can absorb things like nitrogen and sulfur directly will remain.

But don’t give up yet! There are always more words to learn, and maybe you’ll be the one to find the right words to help solve the world’s problems. We’ll be back with more new words from the OED, and we’ll try to find ones that are a bit more cheerful this time …