World Environment Day 2013: Today, June 5
By The Editors
Today we go back to the foodprint: The World Environment Day (WED) 2013 theme is Think.Eat.Save. Ms Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, concluded her WED 2013 message by saying: “From production, transport and storage to sales and consumption, we need to stop food waste at every step of the way. Each of us must rethink our eating habits to have an impact throughout the food chain. This is how we will lay the foundations for greater sustainability, and this is UNESCO’s message on this World Environment Day.”
World Environment Day is celebrated every year on June 5 and it’s one of the main vehicles through which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention. It aims to be one of the biggest and most widely celebrated global days for positive environmental action. World Environment Day activities take place all year round but climax on 5 June every year, coordinated by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The first World Environment Day was in 1973 and is hosted every year by a different city with a different theme. The 2012 theme was “Green Economy: Does it include you?” and the 2011 theme was “Forests-Nature At Your Service.”
World Environment Day 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. Below is one example of the many global activities organized to celebrate World Environment Day: Volunteers in Amritsar, Punjab, India, participate in a cleanliness drive.
7 Comments
Nisha Hudda
The World Environment Day is a very good way to help the entire WORLD be aware of the theme. It is very important to get the entire world involved rather than just a country. The help of the entire world, will help the entire world recover from the damages that have occurred. The goal here is to stop food waste, and examine our own eating habits. I know that I am guilty of food wastage by ordering food and not finishing it. I should order smaller proportions that I will actually consume so I can do my part of the food chain idea. It is really cool that the day is celebrated every year on the same day yet work is being done with this organization on a daily basis. It is very nice to see a picture of people in India in the city I have family in, joining together to work in the environment. I will do my part here in the United States to be a part of an organization that helps the environment and help the hunger issues in the entire world.
nicole_v23
It is so important to address the amount of food wasted every single day especially since there are so many people that go hungry. It is vital to educate consumers so that food does not unnecessarily go to waste. This should remain the primary focus of the campaign. I had never heard of World Environment Day before reading this blog and I think that it’s a great way to educate the public. I would love to participate in something like this and maybe one day it’ll take place in Atlanta. And maybe one day, every day will have focus on the environment and our contributions to it.
Nadouna
I think World Environment Day is a great way to open people’s eyes to what’s going on in our environment. I was just looking at the home page of WED and there’s a lot of things on the website that people can get involved in to make a difference to our environment. I was curious to see how much food around the world is wasted and in this article:http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/10/half-world-food-waste it saysGlobal Food; Waste Not, Want Not, found that between 30% and 50% or 1.2-2bn tonnes of food produced around the world never makes it on to a plate. That is truly a crazy amount of food that is being wasted when kids in the third world countries would do anything for a piece of bread.
Haley M
Addressing the amount of food wasted is very important and World Environment Day is a great idea. Instead of allocating a designated day out of the year , there should be an entire week with each day focusing on one theme. For example one day can be toward food preservation, the next should be designated for metal recycling and so forth. Though one week or one day will not make a major difference, it will be a start. Education is definitely the key to success for there to be any improvement in global well being
awilliams199
Having World Environmental day is a great way to capture the attention of people an promote awareness on environmental issues. I really like the fact that it was mentioned that World Environmental day activities are carried out throughout the entire year because it shows that people should not only focus on cleaning on a certain day of the year. Instead they should make it apart of their daily routine to make sure that they do activities that help to preserve and maintain the earth. Things as simple as recycling, discarding waste in proper areas, or even using energy saving appliances can make a difference.
bcastro3
Addressing “Think.Eat.Save.” is very important and a good way to show that people do care and are trying to do something about our future. So much food is wasted everyday that could feed others who are in need. The main goal for this campaign I think should be focusing on educating citizens how to keep a healthy and enjoyable diet but at the same time teaching how to save food by means of recycling for later use, donating to those in need or just learning how to make portions that will actually be consumed and not end up in the garbage. Its interesting that today I went to the Vatican and had the opportunity to listen to the Pope speak and the main focus of his speech was about food and the environment. He talked about how food is being wasted on a daily basis and could be consumed by those in need which made me think about this post.
chow26
It’s good that food waste is being addressed this year. The message should be driven home in developed countries since we are the main offenders of throwing away edible food. I watched this Austria short film title “wastecooking: days in trash”, where people dumpster diving for food. All you can see being pulled and stockpiled out of these trash cans are products and package food that is otherwise safe to eat, which is later cooked and distributed among people to eat.