Some World Environment Day Slogans
The 5th of June, every year is celebrated as World Environment Day. The casting of so many World Environment Day slogans across the world has been prevalent for the last 47 years. It was started from the first World Environment Day in 1974 hosted by the USA with the theme slogan ‘Only One Earth’.
47th World Environment Day will be observed on 5th June 2021. The hosting country is Pakistan in this term and the slogan or the theme is ‘Restoration of Ecosystem’. The focus of the theme is to retrieve the ecosystem and to create a good relationship with nature. More than 150 countries participate each year on the World Environment Day in support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The last World Environment Day was hosted by Colombia in partnership with Germany with the theme slogan ‘Time for Nature’. It focused on the conservation of biodiversity in nature.
Some Popular World Environment Day Slogans
The world Environment Day platform has put many theme slogans forward from the first observation of World Environment Day in 1974 to facilitate the global awareness program for making a better sustainable world for us. Here are some popular world environment day slogans jotted down from the previous years’ Environment Day celebrations.
- Development without Destruction (1978)
- A Tree for Peace (1986)
- Global Warming, Global Warning (1989)
- Only One Earth, Care and Share (1992)
- Poverty and the Environment — Breaking the Vicious Circle(1993)
- One Earth One Family (1994)
- We the Peoples: United for the Global Environment (1995)
- Our Earth, Our Habitat, Our Home (1996)
- Give Earth a Chance (2002)
- Green Cities — Plan for the Planet! (2005)
- Kick the Habit — Towards A Low Carbon Economy (2008)
- Your Planet Needs You — Unite to Combat Climate Change (2009)
- Many Species, One Planet, One Future (2010)
- Raise your voice, not the sea level (2014)
- Beat Plastic Pollution (2018)
- Beat Air Pollution (2019)
- Time for Nature (2020)
The Flaw of Environmental Activism, the Flaw of Environmental Slogans
The slogans, especially in the political ground motivate the political activists to devote themselves to the cause of their particular interest. The slogan, like ‘Long Live Revolution’ impassioned the youth of the 19th century to sacrifice even their life for breaking the chains of the old society and its worn-out system. But in the course of the last five decades, for those World Environment Day Slogans, there has been the least impact on the activity of the participatory countries of the international platform of the World Environment Day. Is it ill-founded to ask Why? Certainly not. It’s very much justified to expose the international platform because their slogans are very much preferential to the narrative owned by the international industrial lobby that is solely responsible for around 95% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Right now, the crisis of climate change due to GHG emission is the burning issue for the disastrous impact on life on this beautiful earth. Hence, in addition to exposing the ambiguity of the official slogans made by the international platform (UN), environmental activism and its slogans must be more conclusive and more unequivocal to fight the battle for the environment. But, it is interconnected with the fight to change the capitalist system which is solely responsible for the crisis of social and ecological metabolism. Thus, the idea must have to be sharp to conceive environmental activism and its slogans in a radical way and expression. Without it, the struggle for the environment will be stuck in a blind alley.
Why Capitalism is a Great Menace to Environmental Sustainability
After the Copenhagen Agreement (2009) and the Paris Agreement (2015) on climate change, we’ve witnessed various World Environment Day Slogans for the last eleven years. The principal objectives of both international conferences were to reduce the percentage of yearly emission of CO2 and greenhouse gas and the summits set a long-term goal to limit the increase of the maximum global average temperature to below 1.5 degrees for environmental sustainability. But the end-to-end data of the last two decades indicates that the United Nations Federation of Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) fails completely to meet its agreement concluded by 194 participatory countries. The fact is that the world environment day slogans like ‘Global Warming, Global Warning’, ‘Give Earth a Chance’ and ‘Beat Air Pollution’ have been considered as only some good words because the World Environment Day platform took no measure practically in accordance with the agreement of COP-15 and COP-21. Actually, it is not possible under the present global order led by powerful capitalist countries.
Meanwhile, the great Amazon Wildfires in 2019 in the Amazon rainforest, the world-longest terrestrial carbon sink and the important mitigator of global temperature, indicate that the world is going to be witnessed the peak of increasing global warming. At least 40000 fires from January to October 2019 have flamed through Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, and Colombia covering 9,060 km2 areas with a great catastrophe worth of $957 billion (2019 USD). Most of the world environmental activists claim that all the measurement taken by UNFCCC is completely deceitful as they’re funded by the corporates who are major responsible players to destroy the ecosystem.
Actually, the world environment day slogans for a sustainable environment cannot be appreciated by the governments who run and support capitalist manufacturing in the present world. For the sake of profit, capitalism runs warfare in the name of ‘development’ against the ecosystem. The robbing of soil and biodiversity, dismounting of the highlands, deforestation, and changing of rivers’ natural courses are the parts of their so-called industrialization or ‘development’. Thus the incompatibility between capitalism and environmental sustainability has been disclosed. In the mid-nineteenth century, great German philosopher Karl Marx explained that the capitalist economic system creates an irreparable crisis in the ecosystem.
Urban civilization emerges in the age of capitalism. Infinite natural resources and a huge amount of labor are shipped off from the villages to the cities in need of industrialization with no return. Capitalism wants to produce innumerable commodities even beyond our need to make profit ever-increasing. They create the artificial utility of their products. Sometimes, they destroy their surplus industrial and agricultural products from their stock to keep up their profit even in a time of a great famine. According to radical economic researchers, capitalists have created artificial famines.
Thus, the introduction of G.M seeds and pesticides in agriculture, the exportation of huge natural resources from the villages to the cities, massive use of underground water in agriculture and industry, uncontrolled consumerism have impaired the biodiversity or the ecosystem.
American Professor of sociology John Bellamy Foster who coined the term ‘metabolic rift’ once wrote, ‘‘ Metabolic rift is the development of Marx’s earlier work in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts on species-being and the relationship between humans and nature.’’
Capitalism always alienates human beings from nature. Fossil-fuel carbon and greenhouse gas emission cannot be decreased in a capitalist economy because capitalism can survive only on its profit and to keep it up they’ve to introduce machinery which is responsible for excess carbon emission. Hence the call of all the slogans of world environment day cannot be applied practically in this capitalist world order. And the crisis of nature cannot be solved in capitalism because capitalism is not compatible with the well-being of the ecology.
Alternative Economy is Possible for the Sustainability of Our Ecosystem
According to the researchers, ecology and economics alike have come from the Greek word ‘Oikos which means ‘home’. They say that ecology is the science of the household, whereas economics is supposed to be about the management of the household. In a capitalist economic system, economics works against ecology. The crisis of climate change and all other environmental issues are the results of capitalism. Some capitalists intellectuals argue in a childlike manner and ask ‘‘Will industry be built in the air? Without industrialization how will the civilization run?’’ But, they are not ready to agree that ecology and economics are interconnected. No civilization, no economics can be survived standing against ecology. The economy will be crumpled up if the ecological metabolism of this planet becomes fragile.
The model of industrial food and agricultural development run by the global corporates has damaged 75% of biodiversity, soil, air, and water and it is responsible for 95% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Still, it is being presented as efficient and productive. They can’t think of renewable energy. Because they can’t make a profit without the energy from fossil fuels, without deforestation and industrial agriculture for which they get subsidy from the respective governments of each country. Modern manufacturing is responsible for all ecological problems and related health hazards. We also have to explore the model of an alternative economy with the use of advanced technology. Therefore, we must reclaim our biodiversity from the clutches of the capitalist economic system to restore both ecology and economy.
Need to Change Our Way, Fight to Form Conclusive and Unequivocal Slogans
To sum up, the movement for a sustainable environment needs to change its track. The principal issue before the environmentalists is now the crisis of climate change resulted mainly from the massive deforestation and fossil fuel CO2 emissions and industrial agriculture those play a big role in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission over the world. Hence, it is important to identify the problems and to find out who is responsible for the problem of climate change before framing our slogans conclusively.
Right now the slogans like ‘There is no Planet B’, ‘Change the System Not the Climate, ‘Beat the Deforestation’, ‘Don’t Stop the Natural Courses of the Rivers’ and Stop the Corporate Killing of Nature’ are more evident and more unequivocal to represent the environmental activism effectively to make a mass revolt worldwide for restoring the ecosystem. It’s needless to say that the fight for the planet is actually the fight to change the system that is responsible for the change of climate and threat to our planet’s existence.
