I wasn't aware its world environment day.

While returning home from work today, I saw a group of grown ups beside the road. They were planting saplings beside the road and two men held a large printed banner that, in bold letters, said "World Environment Day 2026" along with some slogans and their organization name & logo. In the middle of road was another man, clicking their pictures on his phone, likely to post on their social media handles or just to keep a proof of such event from their organization having happened.

What his phone couldn't capture was the many bikes and few cars parked along the road - personal vehicles these individuals took to reach this location. All running on fossil fuels. The photos missed out on the fact that those pots with juvenile plants were in fact made of plastic. The large banner was PVC. For the uninitiated, PVC banners are highly toxic to the environment in many ways and their pyrrhic utility is highlighted by the fact that they often have short term uses (like the few minutes of photoshoot today) but they cause long term damage.

If you're active enough to look up on the web, you'll find that many calendar days are assigned a special status - to remember or make people aware about a cause, happening, personality etc. When we focus too much on the date rather than the idea, we cause meaning to disappear.

I presently reside in a city that sees annual flooding due to poorly planned infrastructure expansion and nature insensitive ways of development. Environmental clearance norms are being continuously relaxed here to promote development. There are industries in this city, beside residential bocks that release highly toxic fumes and we commoners can't do anything about it. Garbage management is in a pitiable state and there are regular fires in unauthorized landfills.

I can say the same about other cities too. My country's IT hub is built on land incessantly reclaimed from wetlands and lakes, causing it to face annual floods. The city I belong to is no better in this regards. It faces severe pollution every winter, to the point it covers national news for weeks. Trees are seen as on optional ornament to be lined up beside roads. They're not given their due status as a living entity sharing its space within an ecosystem. The Aravalli ranges will one day subside to be a chapter in books about how some "environment lover" elites sliced off an important ecological entity.

There is biodiversity loss happening en masse. Urban green cover is rapidly lowering year by year. Natural forests that took decades to bloom are being taken down for "beautification projects". Rivers are covered with toxic foam and mountains landsliding to hell. Vast green pastures are sold to industrialists for dirt cheap while our cities turn into grey expanses of concrete wasteland. Water is losing its color and air is laden with soot.

Somehow the higher ups think people still need to be reminded of a special day to save the environment. Thats really not the ground reality. My country people have long demanded and struggled for their dear environment; to save their rivers and trees and hills. They are called anti-development in popular discourses. Because we still haven't found a way to reconcile development with sustainability.

Maybe, its just convenient to delegate the cause to a one day activity, isn't it? That relieves everyone of the burden of following a principle or moral. Go out, stand near a tree and click a selfie. Post it to <<<your favorite social media platform>>> and put some hashtags. Voila! You've just done your part in spreading awareness about the great cause. Today we care for the environment. Tomorrow we shall show how we care for the ocean ecosystem by taking a dip on the beach. Day after tomorrow? Thats a Sunday and to relax on the holiday, we shall do a mega haul from fast fashion chain which is responsible for huge environmental degradation!

These days are meant to spread awareness and remind us of important matters. What they sometimes end up doing is bringing out our hypocrisy and lack of understanding. The "special day" loses its very meaning, to be diluted into a checklist. We can not truly "celebrate" a day if we do not commit to the idea 365 days a year. Off the top of my head, I can recall special days for cleanliness, fitness, local self governance, water conservation, a day for women, a "no tobacco day" and a day for mental health. I can't say with confidence that we as a collective community have achieved commendable success on any of these.

Many organizations or individuals simply do not care enough about the philosophy behind these special days. All they want is to be able to say that they did an activity on this special day and farm karma points. The sense of responsibility is missing and it cannot be cultivated unless you make it a core part of the school system. An average 35 year old in this economy is likely more worried about his upcoming EMI payments than the neighborhood trees or prevalence of tobacco. Special days are a mini-festival; an excuse to go out to do some activity to divert your mind from the daily mundane life and then come back home with no effect on what you actually are.

So, maybe you could pretend to care less about the environment or whales or whatever. But at least be honest with whatever care you show. Don't restrict your affection to just a photo album and a special day.