United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/06/omni-un-world-environment-day-june-5.html
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology, June 5, 2025
What’s at Stake: In 1974, the UN urged the world to celebrate World Environment Day with the slogan “Only One Earth”; in 2021 the theme was “Ecosystem Restoration.” These are the large contexts within which the UN seeks to preserve our planet and its civilizations.
CONTENTS
UN World Environment Day June 5, 2025, Slogan, “Beat Plastic Pollution.”
The Shalom Report. “From Sap Rising Up, To People Rising Up.”
George Monbiot. “
Protection Racket.”
TEXTS
World Environment Day 2025 is observed on June 5th and focuses on the theme “Beat Plastic Pollution”. The Republic of Korea is hosting the global celebrations for this year’s event. This year’s theme calls for action to tackle the mounting crisis of plastic pollution and urges communities to take collective action to safeguard the planet.
https://www.worldenvironmentday.global World Environment Day 2025 calls for collective action to tackle plastic pollution. By drawing inspiration from nature and showcasing real-world solutions.
World Environment Day – Beat plastic pollution
https://www.un.org › observances › environment-day
In 2025, it is hosted by the Republic of Korea. Why take part? Time is running out, and nature is in emergency mode. To keep global warming below 1.5°C this …
World Environment Day 2025: Date, theme, poster ideas, host country, significance, history
World Environment Day: UN sounds alarm on plastic pollution crisis
World Environment Day: UN sounds alarm on plastic pollution …
UN News https://news.un.org › story › 2025/06
To rally momentum, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is leading the 52nd annual World Environment Day on 5 June, the world’s largest platform …
“From Sap Rising Up, To People Rising Up.”
Last week, on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shvat – Tu B’Shvat – I wrote to you about the birthday of the trees, the Atlanta Forest Defenders, our duty as Jews to protect life – human and arboreal alike, and some initial action steps to support what’s happening in the Weelaunee Forest.
Today I write to you with additional opportunities to show up for those defending the trees and forests in Atlanta, and to announce The Shalom Center’s co-sponsorship of Third Act’s National Day of Action on 3.21.23, calling on the big banks to move their investments out of fossil fuels.
While more on those opportunities can be found towards the end of this email (or at the links above), first, I want to share some Torah:
The verses that we looked at last week (Deuteronomy 20:19-20), that command us to not destroy trees – actually form the basis of the Jewish legal (halachic) principle against destroying any of Creation. Known as bal tashchit (do not destroy), this principle evolves to emphasize the inherent value of not only trees, but all resources. For instance, the Babylonian Talmud applies the principle to prevent the wasting of lamp oil, the tearing of clothing, the chopping up of furniture for firewood, or the killing of animals (Talmud Shabbath 67b, Tractate Hullin 7b, Kiddushin 32a).
What arises from this line of thought is a general sense that preservation and honoring the sacredness of Creation is paramount. As The Sefer HaChinuch (13th c, Spain) teaches: [It] is the path of the pious and people of action; …They will not destroy even a mustard seed in the world, and they are distressed at every ruination and spoilage they see; and if they are able to do any rescuing, they will save anything from destruction with all their power” (529:2).
If this isn’t a call to action, I don’t know what is. But even beyond that, the Talmud even goes so far as to state that “…one who tears their clothes or breaks their vessels or scatters their money in anger should be considered like an idol worshiper (b.Shabbat 105b; b.Shabbat 67b).” For the rabbis, wanton destruction was not just bad, but a form of evil idolatry.
Now, there are those in our tradition and contemporary society who would argue that profit is the most important thing, and if destruction could yield a profit, it is justifiable (Baba Kama 91b–92a; Mishneh Torah Shoftim; Hilkhot Melakhim 6:9). But The Shalom Center rejects that premise and follows prophet over profit. Because yes, short-term monetary gain for the few may come from razing a forest or fracking a well, but Jewish time doesn’t operate in the short-term and cost isn’t calculated for the few.
Instead, Judaism offers us the promise of the collective, the long game, of ancient time, and the world to come. Surely the cumulative monetary price we will have to pay to try to survive an ever worsening climate catastrophe will cost far more than today’s profits from environmental destruction. But even more essential, for Jews, life is paramount and our God is infinite, eternal. Our purpose is not accumulation of wealth (see the laws of shmitah and yovel), but sanctifying creation, of being a holy nation (Exodus 19:6, Leviticus 20:26), of aligning with the Breath of All Life.
Halachah – Jewish law – could more accurately be translated as “the going,” “the walking,” or “the path-making.” Basically, “walking the walk” or “living out our values.” Within this framework, the “walking” that is inspired by bal taschit most certainly necessitates taking action now to protect sacred life all over. Please see below for two different opportunities to join us in walking the walk of environmental justice and the promise of a more healthy and whole Earth.
Protection Racket.” The Guardian 30th November 2022. 6th December 2022.
https://www.monbiot.com/2022/12/06/protection-racket/
The more destructive the business, the more likely it is to enjoy political protection. In every conflict over the living world, something is being protected. And most of the time, it’s the wrong thing.
The world’s most destructive industries are fiercely protected by governments. The three sectors that appear to be most responsible for the collapse of ecosystems and erasure of wildlife are fossil fuels, fisheries and farming. In 2021, governments directly subsidised oil and gas production to the tune of $64bn (£53bn), and spent a further $531bn (£443bn) on keeping fossil fuel prices low. The latest figures for fisheries, from 2018, suggest that global subsidies for the sector amount to $35bn a year, over 80% of which go to large-scale industrial fishing. Most are paid to “enhance capacity”: in other words to help the industry, as marine ecosystems collapse, catch more fish.
Every year, governments spend $500bn on farm subsidies, the great majority of which pay no regard to environmental protection. Even the payments that claim to do so often inflict more harm than good. For example, many of the European Union’s pillar two “green” subsidies sustain livestock farming on land that would be better used for ecological restoration. Over half the European farm budget is spent on propping up animal farming, which is arguably the world’s most ecologically destructive industry.
Pasture-fed meat production destroys five times as much forest as palm oil does. It now threatens some of the richest habitats on Earth, among which are forests in Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and Myanmar. Meat production could swallow 3m square kilometres of the world’s most biodiverse places in 35 years. That’s almost the size of India. In Australia, 94% of the deforestation in the catchment area of the Great Barrier Reef – a major cause of coral loss – is associated with beef production. Yet most of these catastrophes are delivered with the help of public money.
The more destructive the business, the more likely it is to enjoy political protection. A study published this month claims that chicken factories being built in Herefordshire and Shropshire are likely to destroy far more jobs than they create, wrecking tourism through the river pollution, air pollution, smell and scenic blight they cause. But none of the planning applications for these factories has been obliged to provide an economic impact analysis. Planning officers, the paper found, are highly dismissive of the hospitality industry, treating it as “non-serious and trivial”. By comparison, the paper found, “attitudes to farming were very different; described as serious, ‘proper’ (male) work”. The “tough”, “masculine” industries driving Earth systems towards collapse are pampered and protected by governments, while less destructive sectors must fend for themselves.
While there is no shortage of public money for the destruction of life on Earth, budgets for its protection always fall short. According to the UN, $536bn a year will be needed to protect the living world – far less than the amount being paid to destroy it – yet almost all this funding is missing. Some has been promised, scarcely any has materialised. So much for public money for public goods.
The political protection of destructive industries is woven into the fabric of politics, not least because of the Pollution Paradox (“the more damaging the commercial enterprise, the more money it must spend on politics to ensure it’s not regulated out of existence. As a result, politics comes to be dominated by the most damaging commercial enterprises.”) Earth systems, by contrast, are treated as an afterthought, an ornament: nice to have, but dispensable when their protection conflicts with the necessity of extraction. In reality, the irreducible essential is a habitable planet.
In 2010, at a biodiversity summit in Nagoya, Japan, governments set themselves 20 goals, to be met by 2020. None has been achieved. As they prepare for the biodiversity Cop15 summit in Montreal next week, governments are investing not in the defence of the living world but in greenwash.
The headline objective is to protect 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030. But what governments mean by protection often bears little resemblance to what ecologists mean. . . . more https://www.monbiot.com/2022/12/06/protection-racket/
The protected industries driving us towards destruction will take everything if they are not checked. We face a brutal contest for control over land and sea: between those who seek to convert our life support systems into profit, and those who seek to defend, restore and, where possible, return them to the indigenous people dispossessed by capitalism’s fire front. These are never just technical or scientific issues. They cannot be resolved by management alone. They are deeply political. We can protect the living world or we can protect the companies destroying it. We cannot do both. www.monbiot.com
OMNI CELEBRATES UN WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY, JUNE 5, 2021
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2151229136087998997/4543081952385782475