What does success look like? The GeoLiteracy Project aims to find out.
We have tried thousands of strategies to preserve, restore, protect, and reduce our impacts on our home planet. We have spent billions of dollars on projects and programs. Which strategies have succeeded? Which investments have brought the Earth the best returns?
The genesis of the environmental movement can be traced to several people, moments, and events. Rachel Carson wrote beautifully about the dangers of pesticides to ecosystems and animal life in Silent Spring (1962). The Cuyahoga River lit up in flames in 1969 due to an oil slick catching fire, and it was not an isolated incident. The river caught fire at least nine times prior, in 1868, 1883, 1887, 1912, 1922, 1936, 1941, 1948, and 1952. The federal government created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, ushering in a new era of national research and regulation designed to clean up the environment.
How much progress have we made?
Scientists and politicians have spent entire careers attempting to course-correct. We have witnessed major improvements to air quality, drinking water safety, and water quality. But in 2021, we have continued to see concerning evidence of the destruction we have wrought as a species.
A heatwave in the western United States saw temperatures in Seattle in the triple digits (Fahrenheit).
We saw tropical storm Ana form 10 days before the official beginning of hurricane season, making this the seventh year in a row in which a tropical or subtropical cyclone developed before the official June 1st start of the season.
We saw the Gulf of Mexico boiling with fire when an oil company pipe ruptured near the Yucatan Peninsula in July, taking more than five hours to extinguish.
And speaking of July 2021, it was the hottest month on record. Ever.
There are a few efforts to identify successful strategies (Mongabay’s remarkable Conservation Effectiveness reporting project), collect evidence across project types (the market-based focus of the ISEAL Alliance, Rainforest Alliance, WWF, and Global Environment Facility’s Evidensia project), and learn from unsuccessful strategies (World Conservation Society’s Failure Factors Initiative). I recommend you check out these efforts, which are beginning to answer these remarkably important questions.
We would like to make a contribution to these efforts by asking YOU to contribute examples of environmental success. We will compile, discuss with the organizations, analyze, and report out providing case studies and identifying the common themes among successful programs.
GeoLiteracy’s goal is to find 50 success stories that show unmistakable evidence of success.
If you run a successful environmental program, have witnessed one, or know someone who may know someone who has an idea about one, please let us know! We will take it from there. We just ask that you give us a few details (including your thoughts on what makes the program an example of success), and we will use the program evaluation tools and skills at our disposal to validate, analyze, and summarize what works.
At the end of this effort, we believe we will be able to demonstrate and teach important keys to success that can be adapted to a variety of circumstances and subjects and can provide you with the best chance of saving the Earth—faster.
If you have a candidate for our success story project, please submit it to our database!
Thank you for coming on this journey!
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