The Global Environment Protection and Restoration Education Project (GEPREP) is a new, international organization that is developing a comprehensive, easy-to-use, and free web-based resource for both learning about and taking action regarding what may be the most severe problem that humans have ever faced — that is, our rapidly deteriorating environment. It is designed to be useful for people with all levels of knowledge about environmental issues, including absolute beginners — and even those who still are not convinced that there really is an environmental crisis.
Comprehensive
Geprep.org contains hundreds of pages that cover – or will soon cover – nearly every aspect of the environmental crisis and potential solutions, including the biological, chemical, public health, economic and quality of life issues.
Easy to Use
This website is designed to be easy to use. Among the ways that this is accomplished are:
- written in clear, concise and easy-to-understand English by highly experienced, professional writers
- designed for a wide range of users, including absolute beginners, and suitable for classroom use
- not only explains the science of environmental deterioration but also provides numerous suggestions about how to deal with the problem
- employs extreme light-weight coding to minimize page loading time, which can be an important consideration for locations and situations with poor internet or wifi connectivity or high user charges
- simple, uncluttered design, with no advertisements, banners, popups, etc. to distract users and slow down loading time
- no 'cookie' notifications or other popups to click
- no need to log in, use passwords, or provide personal information
- no use of frames, which can be distracting and waste limited screen space
- designed to be easy to read on a full range of devices, from the smallest cellphone screens to the largest computer monitors
- avoids unnecessary technical terminology; technical terms and concepts used in each article are either explained in the article or linked to another page on the site explaining them
- easy navigation via extensive cross-linking and a comprehensive table of contents
- allows user input at various locations on the site
- provides answers to numerous frequently asked questions about various aspects of environmental issues
- suitable for people whose native language is not English but who have some knowledge of English
Free
The word "free" can have various meanings. With regard to this website it means that all the content can be accessed and used (1) without any monetary cost, (2) without any requirement for memberships, logins or passwords, (3) without the need to provide any personal information, (4) without any 'cookies' or any other form of user tracking or monitoring, (5) without any annoying advertisements, popups, consent forms, etc., and (6) without any restrictions on linking from other websites.
This website can also be considered to be "free" in the sense that it and its contents are not beholden to any particular commercial, nationalistic, political, religious or other special interests. Rather, they are only provided with their stated goal of protecting and restoring the environment, with its consequent overall benefits for humans and other species.
It can additionally be considered to be "free" in the sense that it is not just a passive source of information similar to printed books and many other websites, but, rather, it freely allows – and even encourages – its users to participate by submitting suggestions for corrections, additions and other improvements.
All of the information provided by geprep.org can be used similarly to how the information in a copyrighted book can be used, including free to: read, study, discuss, make copies of a few pages for personal or classroom use, and quote a short passage in a scholarly, scientific, technical or other work for the purpose of illustration, clarification or review. As with other copyrighted works, the only things that are not allowed regarding this website and its contents are the copying onto other websites or other media without express written permission.
Environmentally Friendly
Not only is this website about protecting and restoring the environment, but it is also designed so that the actual operation of the site itself is also environmentally friendly. That is, it is designed to minimize electric power consumption, including in all the data centers in which it is stored and passes through and in all users' computers and other devices. It is also intended to set an example for other websites on how to provide a large amount of useful content while conserving power. Although the internet is still a relatively small consumer of electric power at only about one or two percent, and thus of greenhouse gas emissions, it is growing continuously and could rise to as much as eight percent by the end of this decade according to some projections.