Online change-the-world communities

A core piece of any movement for positive change is achieving critical mass, getting enough people involved and engaged that it starts to gain momentum on its own.

With that in mind, it's been heartening to see the proliferation of online communities with a do-gooder bent. Here are three of my favorites:

Zaadz

Wiser Earth

Care2

It's not just the fact that they exist that excites me. It's the way that reflects a broader cultural shift towards the importance of incorporating a way to make a difference into the fabric of our lives.

Whee-haw!

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Comments

[c4chaos]

thanks for the Zaadz shout out! here's to changing ourselves so we can change our world ;)

see you around.

~C

[Michael Spalding]

The NY Times recently had a great article (http://www.nytimes.com
/2007/07/01/fashion/01green.html?
ex=1341115200&en=
041c0ad4be1779df&ei=5124&partner=
permalink&exprod=permalink) about the bane of green consumerism. It is a fun read.

I think anyone that has been concerned with the limits of natural resources for a long time, recognize green consumerism as a false prophet. At best it is a slight improvement on more of the same and at worse it represents a shadow movement that threatens to hijack our language and ideas to insulate itself from criticism.

One resource citizens can rely on for honest and accurate information about how to lower their footprint is civil society - the millions of organizations that spend day after day working to address environmental degradation and social injustice around the world. Without any direct or tangible benefits to themselves, these groups are discovering solutions and sharing them with the world. As a result of Paul's research, his staff at NCI created WiserEarth (www.wiserearth.org), an online tool to allow more discovery and sharing by anyone concerned with social and environmental justice. If this part of civil society is analogous to the immune system, as Paul suggests, then its success depends on the quality of its connections. WiserEarth is a platform to improve the quality of connections geographically and topically.

The knowledge contained within the growing community at WiserEarth will set the standard for which future market forces will respond. All citizens need to recognize the role the government has to play: there is no such thing as a "free" market and the massive amount of hidden subsidies in the market today, make it next to impossible for truly sustainable market solutions to emerge. Our role at the voting booth will always be more important than our role at the cash register.