Each year on Earth Day, we pause to reflect on our planet —its extraordinary complexity, its fragility, and its resilience –-and our responsibility to care for it. It’s a moment to recognize progress in clean energy, smarter agriculture, and policies that support responsible resource use now and for future generations. Yet amid all this important work, the foundational role of the geosciences is too often overlooked. In a world facing unprecedented environmental challenges, geoscience remains not just relevant but essential.
Preserving and ensuring a sustainable future will require new ideas, new voices, new approaches and a geoscience community that reflects the full diversity of the global human experience to drive the best possible outcomes. This Earth Day, I am proud to reaffirm our commitment to both advancing scientific discovery through our unique non-profit business model that contributes more than 90% of earnings back to our partner societies; and investing in the next generation of geoscientists with our annual $5,000 GeoScienceWorld Graduate Studies Award.
Geoscientists study the processes that shape our planet and beyond, from shifting tectonic plates to groundwater systems to the cycles of carbon and climate and to the potential for life and natural resources beyond our own planet. These are not abstract academic interests, they are the keys to managing our environment, adapting to climate change, and ensuring equitable economic growth and a sustainable future for all.
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a powerful framework for understanding global priorities, and the geosciences play a direct role in addressing many of them. Clean water and sanitation, affordable energy, sustainable communities, and climate action are not only policy goals, they are scientific challenges that geoscientists are helping to solve.
GeoScienceWorld’s own analysis of 38,000 journal articles revealed that nearly one-quarter of geoscience research published over the past decade contributes meaningfully to 16 of the 17 SDGs. For example, groundwater mapping research has helped bring clean water to over 2.3 million people in water-stressed regions, while innovative geothermal studies have accelerated renewable energy adoption in 12 countries. And the work continues. With the support of librarians, educators, and researchers around the world, we remain committed to broadening access to this critical knowledge.
Just as Earth Day calls us to care for the planet’s future, it also reminds us that we must nurture the future of our field. And that means investing in the future geoscientists, innovators, educators, and problem-solvers who will carry this work forward. Let’s recognize that sustainability science must be rooted in an understanding of the Earth itself and beyond and let’s support the students and researchers who are leading us there. If you are or know a graduate student who has a vision for a more inclusive and innovative future in the geosciences, please encourage them to apply for the GSW Graduate Studies Award.
And on this Earth Day, let’s celebrate and recommit to the essential role geoscientists play in safeguarding that future.