Today, October 26th 1977, in Tbilisi ended the most important conference of United Nations on the issue of environmental education. Our heritage is the Tbilisi Declaration, that noted the unanimous accord in the important role of EE as a powerful weapon against the degradation of the world’s environment and towards the achievement of a sustainable society, respectful of Earth and its living communities (not only human ones!).
A sustainable development, as we said, has been defined in the Brundtland Report “Our Common Future” as the “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It means respecting natural cycles and balances while exploiting natural resources, leaving to our offspring the healthy, beautiful and rich world we’ve known in the past and present. Not dirty, polluted, and unlivable Earth.
Unfortunately we’re far from this goal. Every year the Earth Overshoot Day, the calculated illustrative calendar date on which humanity’s resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year, is earlier and earlier. This year it was August 1st, 15 years ago it was September 9th, 30 years ago it was October 15th, and so on… You can learn more about it on the website https://www.overshootday.org
Ecological footprint is a very useful indicator that measure the impact of human activities in terms of the area of biologically productive land and water required to produce the goods consumed and to assimilate the wastes generated. More simply, it is the amount of the environment necessary to produce the goods and services necessary to support a particular lifestyle, and it is different for each country – USA’s footprint is much higher than India’s footprint for example – and each person too, depending on our daily actions. Today humanity uses is the equivalent of 1.7 Earths to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means that we use more ecological resources and services than nature can regenerate through overfishing, overharvesting forests, and emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than forests can sequester.
The solutions are numerous, we saw many of them in the past articles. New methods and technologies are coming up to help our dealing with this issue, but the most powerful weapon is human will. We need to involve everyone and stand for it.
Today in many cities in the world is taking pace the Climathon, a symbolic marathon to for the climate change., in particular on the climate change. Global events like this are fundamental to grab the media’s, governments’ and people’s attention on the environmental issue.
Let’s go for it.
From October 14th to 26th, every day you’ll find here, and on our Facebook and Instagram pages, funny quizzes and games online to know more about environmental issues. You can play everywhere and whenever you want. Follow the anniversary!
Enjoy our quiz on Kahoot. What to do to play:
1. Download the free app “Kahoot!” on your smartphone or connect to the website www.kahoot.com
2. Sign up/Log in
3. Enter the PIN 0383495 or use the link here https://kahoot.it/challenge/0383495
4. Start the challenge!
Elisa, EVS volunteer from Erasmus+
Zemaitija National Park Directorate
Didžioji str. 10, Plateliai, LT-90420, Plungės dstr., Lithuania
Company code: 191440964
VAT code: LT914409610
The founder is the State Service of Protected Areas under the Ministry of Environment.
Website part-financed by the European Union 2014-2020. Interreg V-A South Baltic Cross Border Cooperation Program.
