Happy World Environment Day!

...And happy birthday to me ;-) I knew I was destined to be an environmental scientist when the United Nations designated my birthday as World Environment Day, LOL.

The slogan for this year's World Environment Day is "Melting Ice - a Hot Topic?", which aims to bring focus to the polar ecosystems of the world, and is being hosted by the Norwegian town of Tromsoe in the Arctic circle (see this article). This region is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the globe, so the effects of global warming are much more visible than elsewhere - a scary thought when we here in Australia have just experienced the second hottest May on record (the hottest was last year).

Locally (just up the road in fact), the Hunter Wetlands is hosting an sustainability education day for the local primary schools featuring worm farms and interactive displays. I hold great hopes that my kids' generation will grow up not knowing anything different from the reduce, reuse, recycle message, and I think this is a fabulous way to start, I just wish that this sort of thing had been around when I was at school!

Anyway, my hope is that today's WED media attention helps most of the general population to at least pause and reflect on ways they can help the environment, even simple things such as refusing a plastic bag or getting off the bus one stop earlier than usual.