“Put Climate as your North Star”: World Environment Day Serves as a Platform for Environmental Action

What do salads, cotton clothes, and the global pandemic all have in common? Each one is an example of the interdependence of humans and the webs of life among which we exist. Every year, June 5 marks World Environment Day, a United Nations day known for inspiring environmental action and positive change within our surrounding natural communities. 

The theme for this year’s World Environment Day is biodiversity, or the wide array of life that exists across the globe, from microbes to plants and animals. Though we might not realize it, biodiversity is what supports life on land and in water. It plays a role in providing us with nutritious foods, clean air and water, medicinal sources, and materials for homes and buildings.

Human actions have the ability to greatly impact biodiversity. Deforestation, pollution, and overharvesting of animals and plants can change the composition of living species that exist around the world. Even daily choices we make in our homes – from deciding to consume plastics to choosing which foods we put on our dinner table – have the potential to influence local and global biodiversity.

Climate change is particularly connected to biodiversity. Driven by increased use of fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouse gases, climate change encompasses global warming and can result in intensified droughts, food security threats, and rapidly changing landscapes – all of which can threaten ecosystems and the forms of life they support. Altering the environment at a rapid rate can also contribute to an increased chance for the evolution of viruses, such as COVID-19. Cutting down trees and fragmenting animals’ habitats increases contact between humans and animals, also increasing the possibility of disease transmission. 

The effects of climate change can also impact the health of humans, plants, and animals in other ways. Pollution in the air, water, and land can lead to an increase in the risk of respiratory diseases and cancer, while also contributing to environmental degradation and contamination.

With worldwide lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have stopped flying and reduced transportation, pedestrians have taken over streets, and air pollution has relatively decreased. Yet, global carbon dioxide emissions have only dropped by 5.5 percent – not enough to prevent or drastically slow climate change. Long-term, sustainable solutions for climate change lie at the systemic level, particularly in the ways that energy is produced and transmitted, and the methods by which materials are consumed, recycled, and degraded.

Sabira Lakhani, who works in the environmental sector, has always had an interest in waste. Prior to attending graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she helped run a waste-management business in India.

“Waste is not necessarily one of the biggest contributors to climate change. But to me, waste is the representation of not being thoughtful about our consumption, and not really thinking through the system to handle the waste we create,” she explains, and that “Waste is an afterthought.”

According to Sabira, the underlying solution for such pollution lies in developing systems that incorporate regeneration. “If you want to be avoiding waste, you should be thinking about designing circular economies,” Sabira says. “Not a make-use-throw system, but more circular – being thoughtful about how to use things multiple times and to be more regenerative.”

Although lasting solutions for climate change are systemic, there are a variety of steps we as individuals and a Jamat can take to positively impact the environment within our surrounding communities. Starting on World Environment Day, individual action can help fuel collective action.

“We’re all on a journey, and it takes real effort. Even if World Environment Day is just the beginning, no action is too small, and really we need millions and millions of small actions to make real progress,” Sabira remarks.

Zoya Abdullah is a Senior Associate at CDP, a non-profit organization that helps organizations, cities, and regions manage their environmental impacts. According to Zoya, engaging in reflection on World Environment Day can serve as a starting point for taking action and making change.

“World Environment Day is an amazing opportunity to take a step back and examine our impacts and how it relates to our faith,” Zoya says. “It is a chance to self-reflect and explore how protecting the environment is in accordance with the ethics of Islam and important in protecting future generations.”

Zoya believes another actionable way to commemorate World Environment Day is taking time to learn. “It is an excellent moment to educate ourselves, our families, and our friends—whether it's about composting, the benefits of switching to an electrical vehicle, plant-based recipes and meat alternatives, or what our local city and state governments are doing and not doing,” she states.

Setting goals and maintaining them are important next steps for developing lasting impacts. Even small lifestyle changes, such as limiting consumption of meat and beef, using renewable sources of energy, and purchasing locally produced products of food, can collectively amount to a larger effect.

Environmental action doesn’t need to be limited to daily lifestyle choices, argues Sabira; it can also be incorporated in our professional lives, regardless of our job. Positive change can be brought about by integrating climate sensitivity into our careers and considering how our actions within our professions impact the climate. “Put climate as your North Star,” she says.

Participating in environmental action movements and encouraging conversations around climate change is another way to take action on this day. An energy and environmental professional, Rozina Kanchwala wrote, casted, and produced a play called “Love in the Time of Climate Change,” after the 2016 presidential election. The production debuted in July 2019, and was accepted into the Washington, DC Fringe Festival.

“I had never written a play before, so I didn’t know what the outcome would be,” recalls Rozina. “But seven consecutively sold-out shows later, I learned there was an appetite for environmental education that is entertaining and inspiring.” A tale of a young woman’s adventures balancing dating while working on climate change issues, the performance discussed the theme of solastalgia, or anxiety around climate change. “The play was able to spark a conversation around this feeling that many people have but may not be able to articulate,” comments Rozina. 
Working to bring positive change to ecosystems and natural communities is not simply a matter of protecting the environment; the issue remains larger at heart. “While climate change is sometimes written off as only an environmental issue, it's also a human rights issue,” claims Zoya.

Our faith highlights the importance of serving as custodians of the planet we live on - to care for the Earth as good stewards in order to preserve it for future generations. What steps will you take this World Environment Day to protect our global ecosystem for the years to come?