World Environment Day: What Does It Mean to You?
World Environment Day (WED 2010) is being celebrated on Saturday June 5th, 2010. With a theme of “Many Species. One Planet. One Future.”, the focus of this year’s World Environment Day is to draw people’s attention to the importance of biodiversity and the fragile nature of life on this planet of ours.
In the UN Secretary General’s statement about World Environment Day, he talks about the fact that we must “stop this mass extinction and raise awareness about the vital importance of the millions of species that inhabit our planet’s soils, forests, oceans, coral reefs and mountains. Our health, well-being and sustainable future depend on this intricate, delicate web of ecosystems and life.”
Along those lines, Rwanda, a country widely recognized for its green efforts, has been named as the global host for this year’s World Environment Day. It is Rwanda’s environmental splendor, it being the home to over 52 threatened yet ecologically-essential species such as the mountain gorilla, its never-ending dedication to reforesting its rain forests and their tireless push towards the use of renewable energies that makes them the perfect global host for WED 2010.
Image by schacon
Here are two key ways you can actively participate in World Environment Day:
1) Plant a tree. UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) currently has a Billion Tree Campaign running. Their target is 7 billion trees planted by the end of 2010. Apparently over 3 billion trees have already been planted.
2) Register your WED 2010 activity on the WED website and help “Take a Stand for the Gorillas“. UNEP has set a goal to raise $50,000 US to help protect the gorillas in Rwanda. For every activity or positive environmental action that is registered on the WED website, $10 will be donated to help protect the gorillas.
Saving the gorillas is an important issue as it has been found that human contact, such as that from eco-tours, is causing dangerous stress to gorillas. It is affecting their eating habits, making them more aggressive, etc. Since this is something that is being caused by human contact, then don’t you think it’s something we can help resolve?
So, to help get you in the spirit of World Environment Day, take a look at this performance of Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” as performed at the 2010 Grammy Awards (song starts at about the 1:55 mark). Even without 3-D glasses, it is a great video to watch:
Remember, the intention behind World Environment Day isn’t to get you to join hands and say you care about the environment. It’s to get you to take a look around you and actually make some changes in your life that contribute to your personal survival and the prolonged existence of the many species that make up our world.
Start by taking a look at these “Daily Do Something Tips” and see if there is one thing, or more than one thing, that you can change about your daily routine to make your life more environmentally-friendly. Then ask yourself this question: What does World Environment Day mean to me? I’d love to hear what you think about World Environment Day.
3 Comments
-
Stephanie
We should all do what we can to help the environment and minimize our own impact on it. So glad to hear about days that help raise awareness like this one. Keep World Environment Day in mind, just as you do Earth Day!
-
Lavasa
World Environment Day should not be observed just one day but everyday! We need to take measures to save nature. Time is running out and we all should come together to make this planet a better place to live. Plant more trees. Ban plastic. Save water.
Lavasa City understands the importance of preserving the environment, hence we are contributing in a small way. For a single click, we plant a tree! You can do your bit too!
Steven Earl Salmony
There appears to be a conscious unwillingness among many too many experts, thought leaders and opinion makers to acknowledge in open discussion the utter seriousness of humanity’s global predicament, the consequences of which could be profound, and world-shattering in ways we cannot even imagine. That corporations keep growing toward the ‘Wall’ of unsustainability and governments continue to conspicuously ignore humanity’s predicament by failing to prepare the human family for the recognizable, human-driven effects of the human overpopulation of Earth in our time is the most unfortunate of human determinations. Somehow the “will” has to be summoned to begin coming to grips with the human-induced global challenges that loom so ominously before all of us.
Individuals are called upon the reduce their ecological footprints and the family of humanity is implored to humanely limit the number of human feet on Earth.
These times are especially difficult because silence is vanquishing science. Extant science of human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth is everywhere eschewed. People who speak out in public discourse about these topics are ridiculed and isolated. Being rejected by willfully colluding deniers of what could somehow be real would not be a such a problem if the human-induced global challenges already visible in the offing were not so formidable and so likely to threaten human wellbeing and environmental health in the fairly near future.
Whatsoever the odds, and no matter how daunting are the human-driven challenges which loom ominously before the family of humanity on the far horizon, each one of us has undeniable responsibilities to assume and solemn duties to perform as best we can with the steadfast hope of making the world we inhabit a better place for the children to live in. To do otherwise, much less choose to do nothing but more of the same old unsustainable things we are so selfishly, arrogantly and wrong-headedly doing now, is anathema to me.
Perhaps necessary changes toward sustainable lifestyles and eco-friendly business enterprises are nearly at hand.