Environmental experts celebrate success stories for Earth Day 2022

This combination of July 1998 and April 2020 photos shows a difference in smog levels above the Los Angeles skyline. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, Marcio Jose Sanchez)

With climate change, plastic pollution and a potential sixth mass extinction, humanity has made some incredible messes in the world.

But when people, political factions and nations have pulled together, they have also cleaned up some of those human-caused environmental problems, including healing the ozone hole, clearing perpetually smoggy air and saving many species from the brink of extinction.

“We can be good at cleaning up our messes, it’s whether or not we choose to be and what we prioritize,” said Michigan State University environmental sustainability researcher Sheril Kirshenbaum.