Soccer match.

Sri Lanka, June 8 -- Sunday last was the United Nations Environment Programme's 'World Environment Day'. For many years in the past, this day was a very special day for me. I attended or even spoke at events to celebrate the day. We 'Marched for Conservation', raised flags and took oaths vowing to care for Mother Nature, preached to schoolchildren, planted trees and created new organizations. That was the learning I had. In the unlearning mode, I see the hypocrisy of some of that. On a single day and for another week the focus remains on the environment, just like the world's leaders do when they meet at a UN Climate Change Summit in some world capitol or in the cosy Swiss hill resort of Davos and then go on forgetting to act on the promises made and the resolutions adopted until the next conference or summit approaches. My unlearning tells me that we treat Mother Nature and the wellness of the only plant we have to live on, like we do, a soccer match. Kick the ball for a few hours to and fro, score a few goals, declare winners or call it a tie and then move on to other tasks, as if it is now business as usual.

In India, the News TV Channel NDTV together with its sister entertainment channel 'NDTV Good Times' called for 'Greenathon 3' on Sunday to 'celebrate' World Environment Day, for third successive year. My learning of marketing dogma, would tell me that it was an excellent initiative that can bring huge brand-value-addition to the channel and move some to even change their mindsets on being caring Earth-beings. Yet, my unlearning make me agree more with a blogger on the Internet, who called such "nothing but gimmicky stunts to attract attention with 'do good' tags". Another called it "do good on a single day of the year, while ruining the planet's health, all year round... just another way of massaging one's own guilt".

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