Youth Engagement Pack of the BIG ONE

Yeah, I think the features mentioned here should be integrated into the blog feature mentioned somewhere else. When someone post an announcement, proposal, etc, on a blog, that post becomes searchable/filterable. I probably wouldn't want to read every new announcement, but all posts related to legal issues and community organizing would be interesting.

A think the concept of finding niche markets for switching to a more sustainable economy is a great way to approach the problem, and the only way to do it without massive social unrest because dramatic changes could cause an inability to provide basic services and security. I'm concerned that we've waiting too long to avoid that scenario, but besides securing the historical integrity of who tried to help and who didn't, there isn't much use in complaining about our past failures.

Carbon sequestration could be a false horse though, as the amount of energy required to compress the carbon gas, pump it through a long pipeline to a suitable place to be buried and then pumping it deep underground, is very high. You're right that it might be unsustainable, but it also might be self-defeating.

I certainly believe technology has a role to play in our transition to a more sustainable economy, but it will have much more to do with our attitudes about consumption and waste than technology. I don't believe you are saying this Ed, but sometimes people put a false hope in the human ability to use technology to save ourselves. We need to stop thinking of it as our solution of first resort.

Mike

Hey Duane,

Thanks for your input on this topic. While it could be a while before definitive direction is taken, your comments will help shape the direction and deliberations. From being involved in this discussion for years, and also as a member of WiserEarth, maybe I can articulate the current justification for not including for-profits:

1) Our culture already showers attention and resources on business and government, only two pillars of our society. The third pillar, civil society, gets almost no attention. WiserEarth was originally developed to dedicate a space to them. A place they can call their own. Once the floodgates open, for-profits could come to dominate this space and dilute the space for civil society.

2) WiserEarth is already selective about the non-profits that are entered. It focuses on proactive organizations that address root causes and tries to avoid reactive, palliative organizations. It may be difficult to justify why some for-profits are included, and some non-profits are not included.

To avoid this, at least two technical features need to be improved on WiserEarth before for-profits can be safety integrated.

1) A user should have powerful filtering results to include or exclude for-profits. Our filters don't include that at this point.

2) More challenging, the metrics by which for-profits AND non-profits are judged, needs to be articulated. The staff of NCI has started this process, but the metrics should truly be developed by the community at large. This presents a further challenge: How does the community decide? At this point, WiserEarth has no system for rating or voting and until that happens, big decisions such as this will be left to early adopters with strong opinions.

I know this isn't exactly what you are looking for, but I hope to clarify that for-profits are not included, simply because they are for-profits. A precautionary principle has been adopted, so if or when for-profits are included, it is done correctly.

Best,
Michael

I hear where you are coming from. I don't own a pet, but I do like dogs and wouldn't mind having one. I've justified it by watching how happy dogs are when they are with a good owner.

Lots of animals though, should probably not be pets. I don't care for seeing parrots, lizards, and ferrets in small cages. I'm sure others will disagree with me though.

Hey JT,

Thanks for this article about warming affecting the dog sled race. It is an interesting perspective on climate change.

Voting is a great start, but living in a democratic society takes more than just voting once every couple years. It requires we act in democratic ways in our everyday lives. While I think all the major candidates operate within a narrow spectrum of political discourse, some are clearly better than others. I hope everyone makes a point of doing something just a little more than voting: write a letter to the editor, do phone banking, go door to door, or volunteer at your local polling station.

Hey there,

Are you suggesting a new feature for organizations in which the organization can post their meeting times?

Hey there,

Yes, can you please describe in more detail what you are trying to do? Are you trying to download an image on WiserEarth at a high enough resolution to read, or are you trying to upload an image at readable resolution?

Hey Christoph,

This is great work that you are doing here. I found two organizations in Germany that work in permaculture. They might have good resources:

http://www.wiserearth.org/organization/search?q=&r=1&groups=&is_private=&keywords=permaculture&country=Germany&name=&type=all&state=&scope=all&exclude_words=&city=&activity=all&area=&zip=

Hi Christine,

Thanks for the question. Let's see if I can help you out. Once you click 'Edit' on the About section of your user profile page, an organizational entry, or almost any entity, you'll have two options on the toolbar for uploading images:

Insert Internal Image - This is the method I most frequently use. It requires saving the image to your harddrive first in .gif, .jpg, of .png format. Click 'Browse' and find the folder and subfolder where you saved the image (it sounds like your default folder is the Windows Media folder). Select the image and click, 'Open.' This will load the image location into the field box back on the WiserEarth popup window. Then click, 'Upload' and wait a couple sections for image to load into the library below. Once it is the library, select it [a red box with frame the image] and then click 'Insert Image.'

Insert External Image
Can only except images from flickr or photobucket. Just paste the url in 'Source' and upload.

Avatar: A digital representation of a user in virtual reality site [so any image you think represents you].

I hope that helps. Best.