World environment day

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY5th June

Every Year by Allah dad Khan

What is environment

The sum total of all surroundings of a living organism, including natural forces and other living things, which provide conditions for development

and growth as well as of danger and damage

Environmental pollution

Environmental pollution is “thecontamination of the physical and biological components of the earth/atmosphere system to such an extent that normal environmental processes are adversely affected”

Types of Environmental Pollution

Generally speaking, there are many types of environmental pollution but the most important ones are:

1. Air pollution2. Water pollution3. Land pollution (contamination)4. Noise pollution 5. Radioactive pollution

Pollution how ?

“Pollution is the introduction of contaminantsinto the environment that cause harm ordiscomfort to humans or other living organisms, or that damage the environment” which can come “in the form of chemical substances, or energy such as noise, heat or light”. “Pollutantscan be naturally occurring substances or energies, but are considered contaminants whenin excess of natural levels.”

“Much of what we have come to call pollution is in reality the nonrecoverable matter resources and waste heat.”

“Any use of natural resources at a rate higher than nature's capacity to restore itself can result in pollution of air, water, and land.” (Ref. 6)

“Pollution is habitat contamination”

Pollution how ?

Pollution is “the addition of any substance or form of energy (e.g., heat, sound, radioactivity)to the environment at a rate faster than the environment can accommodate it by dispersion, breakdown, recycling, or storage in some harmless form”

“Pollution is a special case of habitat destruction; it is chemical destruction rather than the more obvious physical destruction. Pollution occurs in all habitats—land, sea, and fresh water—and in the atmosphere

Waking to a Silent Spring

In 1962, the writer Rachel Carson published a famous book called Silent Spring. It showed how chemical pesticides were harming birds. It was the first detailed book about how human actions were hurting the environment. Over the years, many more books and newspaper reports made the issues of saving our planet well-known to everyone.

The Stockholm Conference

On 5th June 1972, world leaders got together to think seriously about our planet's future for the first time. Leaders of 113 countries met in the Stockholm Conference, and agreed upon a plan to reverse some of the damages. It was the first time that issues like CFCs and global warming were discussed.

After the Conference, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was set up. It coordinates activities of all UN member states on issues. One of its best achievements was the Montreal Protocol (watch out for an article on this), which banned CFCs and help stop ozone depletion. The UNEP today funds environmental protection activities in many countries, and is helping countries draw up a treaty to stop global warming.

History

It was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 on the day that United Nations Conference on the Human Environment beganWorld Environment DayThe anniversary of the Stockholm Conference is celebrated as World Environment Day every year. Each year, there is a special theme. The first ever theme was 'Only One Planet'. This year's theme is Many Species. One Planet.

It was first time celebrated in 1973 with the particular theme “Only one Earth”. Since 1974, the celebration campaign of the world environment day is hosted in different cities of the world.

World Environment Day Theme and Slogan

Each year celebration of the World Environment Day is based on the particular theme decided by the United Nations to make the celebration more effective by encouraging mass people worldwide to hugely take part in addressing environmental issues on global scale. Year wise list of the themes and slogans of world environment day are mentioned below:

The theme of the year 2015 would be “One World, One Environment”. The theme of the year 2014 was “small island developing states” or “SIDS”

and “Raise your voice, not the sea level”. The theme of the year 2013 was “Think. Eat. Save.” And slogan was “Reduce

Your Foodprint”. The theme of the year 2012 was “Green Economy: Does it include you?”. The theme of the year 2011 was “Forests: Nature at your Service”. The theme of the year 2010 was “Many Species. One Planet. One Future”. The theme of the year 2009 was “Your Planet Needs You – Unite to Combat

Climate Change”. The theme and slogan of the year 2008 was “CO2, Kick the Habit – Towards

a Low Carbon Economy”.

World Environment Day Theme and Slogan contd

The theme of the year 2007 was “Melting Ice – a Hot Topic?”. The theme of the year 2006 was “Deserts and Desertification” and slogan was “Don’t

Desert Drylands!.” The theme of the year 2005 was “Green Cities” and slogan was “Plan for the Planet!”. The theme of the year 2004 was “Wanted! Seas and Oceans” and slogan was “Dead or

Alive?”. The theme of the year 2003 was “Water” and slogan was “Two Billion People are Dying

for It!”. The theme of the year 2002 was “Give Earth a Chance”. The theme of the year 2001 was “Connect with the World Wide Web of Life”. The theme of the year 2000 was “The Environment Millennium” and slogan was “Time

to Act”. The theme of the year 1999 was “Our Earth – Our Future” and slogan was “Just Save

It!”. The theme of the year 1998 was “For Life on Earth and slogan was “Save Our Seas”. The theme of the year 1997 was “For Life on Earth”. The theme of the year 1996 was “Our Earth, Our Habitat, Our Home”. The theme of the year 1995 was “We the Peoples: United for the Global Environment”. The theme of the year 1994 was “One Earth One Family”


The theme of the year 1993 was “Poverty and the Environment and slogan was “Breaking the Vicious Circle”.

The theme of the year 1992 was “Only One Earth, Care and Share”. The theme of the year 1991 was “Climate Change. Need for Global Partnership”. The theme of the year 1990 was “Children and the Environment”. The theme of the year 1989 was “Global Warming; Global Warning”. The theme of the year 1988 was “When People Put the Environment First, Development

Will Last”. The theme of the year 1987 was “Environment and Shelter: More Than A Roof”. The theme of the year 1986 was “A Tree for Peace”. The theme of the year 1985 was “Youth: Population and the Environment”. The theme of the year 1984 was “Desertification”. The theme of the year 1983 was “Managing and Disposing Hazardous Waste: Acid Rain

and Energy”. The theme of the year 1982 was “Ten Years after Stockholm (Renewal of Environmental

Concerns)”. The theme of the year 1981 was “Ground Water; Toxic Chemicals in Human Food Chains”. The theme of the year 1980 was “A New Challenge for the New Decade: Development

without Destruction”.


The theme of the year 1979 was “Only One Future for Our Children and slogan was “Development without Destruction”.

The theme of the year 1978 was “Development without Destruction”. The theme of the year 1977 was “Ozone Layer Environmental

Concern; Lands Loss and Soil Degradation”. The theme of the year 1976 was “Water: Vital Resource for Life”. The theme of the year 1975 was “Human Settlements”. The theme of the year 1974 was “Only one Earth during Expo ’74”. The theme of the year 1973 was “Only one Earth”.

World Environment Day Quotes

Some of the famous quotes (written by the famous personalities) on world environment day are mentioned below:

“The environment is everything that isn’t me”. – Albert Einstein “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a

thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools”. – John Muir “Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth”. – Henry David

Thoreau “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the

world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”. – Margaret Mead “We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment”. – Margaret Mead “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment”. –

Ansel Adams “I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security.

Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend”? – Robert Redford

“Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you”. – John Muir

“Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we’ll soon be in trouble”. – Roger Tory Peterson

World Environment Day Quotes contd

“By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water”. – Aeschylus

“If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either”. – Joseph Wood Krutch

“They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse”. – Sitting Bull

“Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land”. – Aldo Leopold “After all, sustainability means running the global environment – Earth Inc. – like a

corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital”. – Maurice Strong

“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left”. – Aldo Leopold

“You will die but the carbon will not; its career does not end with you. It will return to the soil, and there a plant may take it up again in time, sending it once more on a cycle of plant and animal life”. -Jacob Bronowski

“People blame their environment. There is only one person to blame – and only one – themselves”. – Robert Collier

World Environment Day Quotes

“I can find God in nature, in animals, in birds and the environment”. – Pat Buckley “We must return to nature and nature’s god”. – Luther Burbank “The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get

everybody involved”. – Richard Rogers “Journey with me to a true commitment to our environment. Journey with me to the serenity

of leaving to our children a planet in equilibrium”. – Paul Tsongas “Environmental degradation, overpopulation, refugees, narcotics, terrorism, world crime

movements, and organized crime are worldwide problems that don’t stop at a nation’s borders”. – Warren Christopher

“I think the government has to reposition environment on top of their national and international priorities”. – Brian Mulroney

“Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art”. – Barry Commoner

“Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it”. – Barry Commoner

“The government should set a goal for a clean environment but not mandate how that goal should be implemented”. – Dixie Lee Ray

“Why has it seemed that the only way to protect the environment is with heavy-handed government regulation”? – Gale Norton

“The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture”. – Gaylord Nelso

Why World Environment Day is Celebrated

World environment day annual celebration campaign was started to address the huge environmental issues like wastage and losses of food, deforestation, increasing global warming and so many. Every year celebration is planned according to the particular theme and slogan of the year to bring effectiveness in the campaign all through the world.It is celebrated to successfully get carbon neutrality, focusing on the forest management, reducing greenhouse effects, promoting bio-fuels production by planting on degraded lands, use of hydro-power to enhance electricity production, encourage common public to use solar water heaters, energy production through solar sources, developing new drainage systems, promoting coral reefs and mangroves restoration in order to get prevented from flooding and erosion including other ways of environmental preservation

Objectives of WED

Some of the objectives of the world environment day campaign are mentioned below:

It is celebrated to make aware the common public about the environmental issues.

Encourage common people from different society and communities to actively participate in the celebration as well as become an active agent in developing environmental safety measures.

Let them know that community people are very essential to inhibit negative changes towards the environmental issues.

Encourage people to make their nearby surroundings safe and clean to enjoy safer, cleaner and more prosperous future.

World Environment Day

World Environment Day is the United Nations’ campaign for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment. Over the years it has grown to be a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated by stakeholders in over 100 countries. It also serves as the people’s day for doing something positive for the environment, inspiring individual actions into a collective power that generates an exponential positive impact on

the planet.

World Environment Day (WED)

World Environment Day (WED) is an annual event that aims to be the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for positive environmental action. WED activities take place all year round but climax on 5 June every year.

WED celebration began in 1972 and has grown to become the one of the main vehicles through which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action.

Through WED, the UN Environment Programme is able to personalize environmental issues and enable everyone to realise not only their responsibility, but also their power to become agents for change in support of sustainable and equitable development.

WED is also a day for people from all walks of life to come together to ensure a cleaner, greener and brighter outlook for themselves and future generations.

WED date

World Environment Day is held each year on June 5. It is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations (UN) stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action.

World environment day 2015 would be celebrated by the people all across the world on 5th of June, at Friday.

Theme of 5th Jne 2015

Every year, the United Nations Environment Program honors World Environment Day on June 5 to raise awareness about environmental issues and call for action. The UN Environment Program just announced the theme of this year’s event: sustainable lifestyles.

The topic is a particularly powerful one, because there’s room for everyone to take a moment to question how we live and how it impacts the planet. The theme asks everyone to evaluate our consumer habits: how we shop, eat and travel.

The UN Environment Programme says creating more sustainable lifestyles is crucial: he 2015 theme for World Environment Day is

"Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care." The Milano expo theme for the year's WED is "Feeding the planet, Energy for life

Environment VS Population

“By 2050, if current consumption and production patterns remain the same and with a rising population expected to reach 9.6 billion, we will need three planets to sustain our way of life. Living well within planetary boundaries is the most promising strategy for ensuring a healthy future.”

What do people do?

World Environment Day is celebrated in many ways in countries such as Kenya, New Zealand, Poland, Spain and the United States. Activities include street rallies and parades, as well as concerts, tree planting, and clean-up campaigns. In many countries, this annual event is used to enhance political attention and action towards improving the environment. This observance also provides an opportunity to sign or ratify international environmental conventions.

Public life and Back ground

The UN World Environment Day is not a public holiday, so public life is not affected.BackgroundWorld Environment Day was established by the United Nations

General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Another resolution, adopted by the General Assembly the same day, led to the creation of UNEP. It is hosted every year by a different city and commemorated with an international exposition through the week of June 5

Symbols

The main colors featured in many promotions for this event are natural colors depicting nature, the earth and its natural resources. These colors are often softer shades of green, brown and blue. Images of natural the earth's features, such as snowy mountains, clean beaches, unpolluted rivers, and photos of natural flora and fauna, including fern leaves, are used to promote campaigns supporting the day.

World Environment Day Observances

Key Messages Globally, we are extracting more resources to produce goods

and services than our planet can replenish. The result is that economic growth and social development

cannot be sustained with our current consumption and production patterns.

One of the greatest challenges facing humanity today is to maintain healthy growth rates to lift the world’s one billion out of absolute poverty and carefully manage the natural resources required to sustain the expanding human population that will reach nine billion by 2050 – all while keeping environmental impacts within acceptable limits and sustaining life’s natural support system. • To meet this challenge we need to transition to more efficient and sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns.

World Environment Day Observances

Key Messages SCP is a pattern of behaviors that aims to reduce negative

environmental impacts and help meet human needs by producing more and better with less resources and fewer negative impacts.

The most promising strategy for achieving SCP is to “decouple” economic growth from the rising rates of natural resource use and the environmental impacts that occur in both consumption and production stages of product life cycles.

There are concerted international efforts to achieve decoupling. In 2012, at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20), countries formally adopted the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production patterns (10YFP), which aims to enhance international cooperation to accelerate the shift towards SCP patterns in both developed and developing countries.

Sustainable production

UNEP research shows that in many countries, economic growth and development has been hampered by the rising economic and environmental costs of resource depletion and negative environmental impacts. There is therefore a need for a policy response that commits both governments and industries to reduce the amount of resources used for each unit of production and reduce negative impacts on the environment (i.e. increase “decoupling”). Sustainable Production is about a continuous application of an integrated and preventive environmental strategy to produce goods and services more efficiently with lower risks to humans and the environment. Using scarce resources more efficiently is also a key building block in meeting the needs of a growing and increasingly urban world population.



UNEP defines resource efficiency as a reduction in the total environmental impact of the production and consumption of goods and services - from raw material extraction to final use and disposal. Resource efficiency can help us meet human needs while respecting the ecological carrying capacity of the earth. It can also directly benefit businesses seeking to lower production costs. Since resource inputs represent an important cost of production for industries, efficiency improvements can be a significant lever for competitive advantage. Investments in improving resource efficiency and recycling reduce the demand for energy, water and virgin resources, thus reducing the need to invest billions on new energy and water supply infrastructure. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that, if countries focused on boosting energy efficiency, they could not only provide a 10 per cent reduction in global energy demand by 2030 but also save USD 560 billion.


The global waste market, from collection to recycling, is estimated at USD 410 billion a year, not including the informal segment in developing countries. Recycling is likely to grow steadily and form a vital component of greener waste management systems, which can also provide decent employment. While currently only 25 per cent of waste is recovered or recycled, under the green investment scenario modelled in the Green Economy Report, the amount of waste destined for landfills would be considerably reduced, implying the development and expansion of new market opportunities.

Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care.

The well-being of humanity, the environment, and the functioning of the economy, ultimately depend upon the responsible management of the planet’s natural resources. Evidence is building that people are consuming far more natural resources than what the planet can sustainably provide.

Many of the Earth’s ecosystems are nearing critical tipping points of depletion or irreversible change, pushed by high population growth and economic development. By 2050, if current consumption and production patterns remain the same and with a rising population expected to reach 9.6 billion, we will need three planets to sustain our ways of living and consumption.

The WED theme this year is therefore "Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care." Living within planetary boundaries is the most promising strategy for ensuring a healthy future. Human prosperity need not cost the earth. Living sustainably is about doing more and better with less. It is about knowing that rising rates of natural resource use and the environmental impacts that occur are not a necessary by-product of economic growth.

10 Things You Can Do to Reduce Global Warming

1. Reduce , reuse and recycle2. Use less heat and air conditioning3. Change a light bulb 4. Drive less and drive smart 5. Buy energy efficient productds6. Use less hot water 7. Use the off Switch 8. Plant a tree9. Get a report card from utility company10. Encourage others to conserve

Five Things to Control environment

1. Control population 2. Use less water and keep it clean 3. Eat responsibly4. Conserve energy and switch to renewable energy 5. Reduce your carbon foot print