World Environment Day, which falls on June 5 every year, was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 -- shortly after the US instituted Earth Day.
While there are many ways of observing World Environment Day, one of the easiest and certainly the newest is Twittering for Trees:
United Nations World Environment Day is coming up on June 5th, and in an effort to get things rolling, the organization launched a Twitter contest (that is also a great way to market the earth-focused day) that for each new Twitterer that follows @UNEPandYou before June 5th, a tree will be planted.
Hard to say if the US will notice -- we did just have Earth Day, after all, and then there's the weird little issue of the official North American World Environment Day host city -- Omaha, Nebraska. Though it is Nebraska's largest city, it's awfully difficult to get the coast's attention from Omaha, unless you're the Oracle.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
- Plant a tree.
- Follow the United Nations Environment Programme on Twitter
- If you're a teacher, you can try some World Environment Day lesson plans, even for pre-school and kindergarten.
- Check out the UNEP's 12 dry (like UN dry) steps to combat climate change
- But seriously: Reduce, reuse, recycle.