The Church of Scientology, in partnership with the Way to Happiness Association of Tennessee, observed World Environment Day with an event called Growing Nashville.

​​​According to the Nashville Area Metro Planning Organization, “transportation, and policies that guide the expansion of transportation infrastructure, are increasingly linked to a variety of environmental issues.” It’s no doubt that Nashville has been experiencing unprecedented growth, but what is happening to the natural environment as this growth occurs?

This was the subject of the World Environment Day event “Growing Nashville” at the Church of Scientology, organized in partnership with the Way to Happiness Association of Tennessee.

World Environment Day was established by the United Nations to encourage worldwide awareness and action to protect our environment.

The event included a presentation by the Metro Nashville Beautification and Environment Commission’s Horticulturist and other community initiatives to help the city, followed by live music from Jess Lacoy and Kevin Riley Corbo.

Judy Young, Director of The Way to Happiness Association of Tennessee presented native Nashville plants to the Beautification Commission’s Horticulturist and Edgehill community leader Brenda Morrow for their work to make Nashville more beautiful and true to its environment.

The Way to Happiness Association, which sponsored the event, was created to promote the book The Way to Happiness, written by humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. The book’s 21 precepts are based on the principle that one’s survival depends on the survival of others. “Your own survival can be threatened by the bad actions of others around you,” he wrote. “You are important to other people. You are listened to. You can influence others.”

One way in which one’s own actions and influence can make a significant impact is closely related to the purpose of World Environment Day.

In the precept “Safeguard and Improve the Environment,” Mr. Hubbard wrote:

“The idea that one has a share in the planet and that one can and should help care for it may seem very large and, to some, quite beyond reality. But today what happens on the other side of the world, even so far away, can effect what happens in your own home….

“One can ask, ‘Even if that were true, what could I do about it?’ Well, even if one were simply to frown when people do things to mess up the planet, one would be doing something about it. Even if one only had the opinion that it was just not a good thing to wreck the planet and mentioned that opinion, one would be doing something…

“There are many things one can do to help take care of the planet. They begin with the idea that one should. They progress with suggesting to others they should.

“Man has gotten up to the potential of destroying the planet. He must be pushed on up to the capability and actions of saving it.

“It is, after all, what we’re standing on.”

World Environment Day was set aside by the UN as “the ‘people’s day’ for doing something positive for the environment, galvanizing individual actions into a collective power that generates an exponential positive impact on the planet.”

The Way to Happiness was written in 1981. Immensely popular since its first publication,

some 115 million copies have been distributed in 115 languages in 186 nations. It holds the Guinness World Record as the single most-translated nonreligious book and fills the moral vacuum in an increasingly materialistic society.

The Church of Scientology and its members are proud to share the tools for happier living contained in The Way to Happiness.