World Environment Day

World Environment Day

On World Environment Day people from countries all around the world come together to take action to defend our planet. Find out about some of the things people are doing to celebrate this special day.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the article and do the exercises.

Preparation

People celebrate World Environment Day (WED) in many different ways all over the world: planting trees, cleaning up local beaches, organising meetings, joining online protests. Each year the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) chooses a particular issue to focus on. One year it might be forests, another year it might be wildlife. And each year there is a new host; a city which is the centre point for all the celebrations.

How it first started

The United Nations (UN) named 5 June as international World Environment Day at the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. The idea was to draw attention to the many problems that are facing our environment. They wanted to include as many people, organisations and governments, both local and national, as possible. They wanted to show that positive change is possible when people work together to fight for a common cause.

The first World Environment Day

The first WED was celebrated in 1974 in the city of Spokane in the USA. The slogan for that first year was ‘Only One Earth’ and it was celebrated with the world’s first world fair to be dedicated to the environment. The exhibition lasted for six months.

The hosts

Since 1974 the WED has been hosted by 34 different cities in 25 different countries around the world, from Cuba to Korea, from Belgium to Brazil. Some countries have hosted the main celebrations two or more times, including Bangladesh, Canada and China. But that doesn’t mean that all the celebrations take place in the host country. Every year people from all over the world take part in a huge number of different events to draw attention to the main issue.

The issues

Each year the celebrations focus on a particular problem. Over the last ten years key issues have included wildlife, forests and plastic waste, among other things. Each issue has a slogan. Past slogans include ‘Think. Eat. Save.’, which asked people to think about the issue of food waste, and ‘Raise your voice, not the sea level’, to focus on the effect that global warming is having on small island nations around the world. As well as slogans, hashtags have become important for the campaigns too. In a recent campaign the hashtag #WildforLife became a strong symbol for the fight against all kinds of illegal trading in plants and animals.

What you can do

If you want to take part in the celebrations, or support this year’s special cause, here are some things that you can do. You can visit the official website to find out what this year’s slogan is. You can search for the slogan online to find organisations and events in your area or online. You can share information about the cause and the events on social media or form a local action group of your own and organise an event in your community. Whatever you do, you won’t be alone. Millions of people all around the world will be joining the celebrations and fighting for a better future for our planet.

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Submitted by Wadahaßßß on Mon, 26/06/2023 - 10:52

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Carbon increasing is one of the most difficult problems that environment suffers from . To fight this problem we must plant more trees , because trees can take Carbon and clean the Air . Trees are very important .

Submitted by suryakiran on Tue, 06/06/2023 - 11:53

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The main problem which we see in our daily life's, We use plastic in our day-to-day life which it became habitual to use without thinking about the consequences that we are going to face in the future, and we already started paying for it. We can consider so many examples, plastic which was dumped into oceans caused inhabitant to survive ocean life and when these sea animals started consuming these plastic materials either those sea animals were deceased because of the polythene material which was compounded with several chemicals, whereas a few sea animals were deca because of the lack of sun rays that were never reached to the inside of the Ocean.

Submitted by Ibrahimyousef on Thu, 25/05/2023 - 16:52

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Hi! everyone
In my opinion , it is more than plastic , cloth waste and food waste is the most issure invironment in the cosmopolitan, I think , initially it is available area to buy recycling . Subsequently, it is recycled to use a manufacture local . For instant , chair and furniture.

Submitted by uttambro on Mon, 30/01/2023 - 17:23

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Someone has so rightly said that be the change which you wish to see.If even 20-30% people from our so called civilized society, understand their responsibility as a living creature and try to be eco-friendly as much as they can, the problems like global warming and green house effect would be easily eradicated, resulting in a more natural and healthy life on this Earth.
However, it's not that easy as it seems, it would require a lot of patience and consistency for getting succeeded.The reformed ones would have to play a vital role in creating awareness among the remaining people towards nature.
I personally belong to India and the situation here is too pathetic.The South Asian countries stand much lower in terms of cleanliness than most of the countries.
Requesting to shorten the gap between you and the nature.
Signing off on behalf of myself:)

Submitted by 1Enginner on Mon, 26/12/2022 - 09:25

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hi everybody,
it is the most important one of issues in the world. Primarily, we should know to be conscious that issue. First education start in family and then at school. We should grow up our childreen as a conscious person. I've have run into lots of people who They throw up their trash on the street.if you see them , we must warn them due to they did stuff. Also I want to tell that we must reduce our carbonfoot print. Lots of them threaten our planet from these issue .

Submitted by Charulata Si on Wed, 12/10/2022 - 09:12

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Currently, the main problems that are facing the environment are global warming, deforestation and the greenhouse effect. Firstly, awareness should be brought among people by organizing campaigns that encourages them to contribute towards our environment at any level. Planting trees and recycling household wastes can lower the production of carbon dioxide and reduce global warming to some extent. Installing solar lights and reducing the use of energy-reliant electronics will help to decrease emission of green house gases.To promote afforestation, government regulations should ban clear-cutting of trees. Also, we should try to minimize our daily consumption of paper, plastics etc., and opt for recycled paper products instead. These are some measures that can be taken to enhance the condition of our environment.

Submitted by Sudhir Ch on Wed, 01/06/2022 - 14:52

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I am from Pakistan. In Pakistan no proper construction of homes, agriculture lands are going to close and housing societies are flourish. the worst position of Karachi sea, no maintenance, people cut the tree from forest and burn in winter, court ban on use of plastic product but companies prepare and sold it in market and citizens use freely. they need to awareness of harm full act of these things. in these days a lot peoples use old engine motor car, bikes, trucks and other vehicle's. no planning of constriction road, bridges and concrete buildings any where. the but not least its a bad condition of environment in Pakistan and my city Lahore is most pollution city of the world.

Submitted by alphazero on Sat, 14/05/2022 - 05:16

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The main problem we are facing is global warming as it has caused so many dire consequences to human's lives globally such as rising sea levels in Arctic, which results in flooding in many deltas. Besides, temperatures in many countries like India, the USA are breaking their records. There is a lot of activity we can involve in to protect our planet such as reducing the use of plastic bags and cycling or using public transport can definitely contribute to the resilience of the environment.

Submitted by takayashu on Wed, 11/05/2022 - 22:33

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I think the main problems are plastic waste and deforestation.