A Critique of Environmental Rhetoric Used During World Environment Day

Fixing environmental problems is one of the fastest-growing priorities for young generations. College degrees such as chemistry and environmental engineering contain courses where students can learn how to tackle a variety of problems, from pollution to energy efficiency. Unfortunately, fixing large problems like global warming or plastics pollution will require the help of millions of people, not just those with technical skills. For this reason, environmental remediation is increasingly becoming not just a technical problem, but a communicative and rhetorical problem as well. Social media in particular is crucial in spreading awareness and garnering support for environmental movements. This paper analyzes the United Nations Environmental Programme’s World Environment day and shows how social media for these movements can improve with a more realistic portrayal of current issues. People can be the heroes of the environment, but the responsibility to do so may lie in an acknowledgement of the fact that humans also created most of the problems