Happy Birthday To Us! Environmental Echo Eyes Its Future On 10-Year Anniversary

How many blogs last 10 years? Or even one year?

Statistics show the average life of a blog is less than two years. There are literally hundreds of millions of abandoned blogs on the worldwide web. In 2023, there were 600 million active blogs worldwide.

If each of those blogs had as many hits as EE has had over its 10 years, we would be talking 36,000,000,000,000 hits. Environmental Echo is happy to report it will celebrate 10 years this October! Hurray for us! The blog started as a class project in an environmental communications class at Webster University in October 2014.

Stories posted in those early months of EE included such topics as fracking, raising urban chickens, climate change and coverage of Gateway Greening and Ethical Society events on climate justice.

Many of the first EE posts were written by Webster students. EE became independent of the university when the School of Communications pulled the plug on the Outdoor/Environmental Journalism Certificate in 2018.

Professor Don Corrigan and environmental writer Holly Shanks resolved to continue EE. They became the ad hoc co-editors of the blog and kept it lively – never going a month without some informational posts.

“I am pleased to report that EE will soon be posting some great student writing again from Jack Farish, Zoe DeYoung, Jess Holmes and more,” said Corrigan. “I’m teaching in the school’s environmental and sustainability course area and the students are as motivated as ever to make a better world.

“Unfortunately, there are fewer venues for concerned students to be read and heard,” said Corrigan. “It’s very sad that student newspapers, ’zines, and media have evaporated. Students need a voice. They are anxious about the future. That’s a big reason why Holly and I have continued EE.”