Appropedia Blog

Greenlivingpedia is an active green wiki - one of the few. Covering the whole range of green issues, with a particular focus on sustainable buildings and the needs of the modern, green-minded urbanite, Greenlivingpedia is a nicely laid-out site with a good collection of information.

What's remarkable is that it's largely the work of one passionate person,* Peter Campbell, Melbournite and (when elections come around) a candidate for the Australian Greens party. I've met Peter in Sydney a couple of times, and found him to be an honest, direct, no-nonsense, with no patience for greenwashing and the dumbing down of the green message for the sake of profit. In contrast, Peter is building something solid, and it''s good to see what an impressive resource can be put together by one motivated individual.

It's surprising to see, though, that more contributors haven't joined up. We know what that's like - many praise wikis, but far fewer actually contribute - so the efforts of one person can really stand out.

From the time we first made contact, over two years ago, we've extended the offer to collaborate on one site, but Peter prefers to keep a different focus. I can appreciate the value of market segmentation, at the same time as we'd love to work more closely with Peter. So we collaborate where we can, and our conversations continue.

As wiki software improves, new kinds of collaboration will become possible. In the meantime Peter's persistence shows what can be achieved with patient work in green open knowledge.

*To see who has been contributing to a wiki recently, see the Recent changes page or equivalent, usually linked on the left. Each page also has its own history tab - available above the page title.

This is part of the green wiki series.

Health headlines. Promises of cures for cancers (sometimes even a cure for "cancer", which makes little sense as cancer refers to many diseases). Diets. Fitness. Weight loss. Heart health. The latest discovery by scientists, often using similar language to the opposite claim made not so long ago in the media.

New stories every day. A deluge of data, often unreliable data, that distracts us from the much harder search for actual knowledge.

This is the nature of the mass media - careful analysis isn't as captivating as the appearance of new breakthroughs every day, and isn't cost-effective from a media perspective. But as we become more media savvy, we question the media, and hopefully we turn to more reliable sources.

Here's a very promising source of intelligent news about health: Behind the Headlines. It takes health headlines and discusses the evidence that does or does not exist for the headline. Fantastic.

Aside from being more informative about the individual cases, this also introduces critical thinking into the reporting and consumption of health news. The reader is presented with a framework through which each story is analyzed. Rather than a simple "Scientists have discovered that...", a claim made must hold up to examination. Being told what to believe by someone in a white coat is replaced by sound argument and research. This is good.

Health professionals and those interested in the subject, please check it out and let us know what your assessment

Getting behind the noise on a wiki

Fellew wikiholics, how do we best apply this kind of critical analysis in a wiki? In our case, we deal with knowledge about global public health, international development, and sustainability, which are also contentious areas - this looks similar enough. It's just a matter of applying it in the wiki world. Some of the principles have been worked out on Wikipedia - others will have to evolve on Appropedia to suit the different goals and guidelines, including more room for analysis. It seems to me that a community of informed, thinking people, a guideline for page structure and some editing tools will be the starting point for this evolution.

"Behind the Headlines" is provided by the NHS Knowledge Service in Britain. Many thanks to the British taxpayer - if it fulfills its promises, this is money very well spent.

The Open Knowledge Foundation has launched a new mailing list for open knowledge in development. Jonathan Gray writes:

We encourage you to join - whether you’re interested in:

• visually representing development related open data (a la OKF Advisory Board member Hans Rosling)
• sharing development information or making it easier to find and re-use (a la Aidinfo or PublishWhatYouFund)
• sharing practical information for development, e.g. on sanitation or construction (a la Appropedia or Akvo)
• open textbooks and open resources for education in developing countries
• or in any other open knowledge thats related to development!

The full post is on their blog: New mailing list for open knowledge in development

Looking at what One Laptop Per Child  is about highlights two aspects to knowledge in development:

• knowledge as development (OLPC's educational mission)
• knowledge for development, which they're happy to have included in the "content bundles" loaded onto the XO laptops (based on our conversations with them).

Both aspects of knowledge are essential - and so is collaboration to build this knowledge in an open way.

The birthplace of civilization (at least based on the clearest evidence we have) was in population centers based in abundant agricultural lands, at the crossroads of moving groups of varying ethnicities:  the Fertile Crescent, i.e. the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia.

This was an exciting development in human development. Cities are culturally dynamic and innovative places. At a critical time in our history, seeking to change the direction of civilization and commit to a zero-carbon or negative carbon economy, we do well to remember this.

Most observers agree that the way forward for Canada lies in achieving a more effective innovation economy, but there is considerably less understanding of the role that cities play in an innovation economy. The reality is that cities are ever more important as sites of production, distribution and innovation around the globe.

via Conference Board Speeches and Op-eds > Innovative economy vital to take cities into the future.

On the other hand, people outside the cities are more connected than ever. So while a city's face-to-face interactions are great for innovation,  we can still keep track of a project like the Factor-E Farm, where innovative appropriate technologies are being developed in an off-the-grid context that's forcing them to hard work and creativity to achieve their aims.

There's no need for a a fiery debate about whether off-the-grid or cities are better. Each have their advantages, and there are different choices for different people - and a thrivable future means having choices. But off-the-grid technologies and the social, creative energy of cities can work together. Social technologies that enable collaboration - of which Appropedia is one example - can bring together the creative forces of cities and physically isolated people.

Not sure if that was coherent or a ramble. But share your thoughts in the comments.

As has been reported in the media, and highlighted by animal welfare groups, eliminating animal products from your diet is better than trading in your gas-guzzler for a Prius. But as in all things, moderation achieves good results and, importantly, is achievable:

The idea that one need not go “cold turkey” and avoid all meat also makes the prospect of changing diet more palatable. New York Times food writer and cookbook author Mark Bittman has recently adopted an eat-less-meat habit, sharing low meat recipes as part of an easy, delicious modern approach to cuisine. As Bittman has pointed out, it’s much easier to go low on meat than to say no to meat. Indeed, with greater availability and variety of high-quality vegetables, beans, and grains-plus more appealing and varied recipes, inspired by a more cosmopolitan cuisine, the possibility of eating very well with a low meat diet is now greater than ever before.

via Ann Vileisis: Time to break the low-meat barrier.

Eating fresh local food (and super fresh food tastes so much better) is appealing, but for some of us, we're just never going to make our own gardens. Behold, a solution:

What is ‘yardsharing’?

Yardsharing is an arrangement between people to share skills and gardening resources; space, time, strength, tools or skills, in order to grow food as locally as possible, to make neighborhoods resilient, kids healthy and food much cheaper!

via What is yardsharing? « Hyperlocavore.

Turn that wasted space (that you have to maintain) into a resource.

Turn a chore into a social activity. While I grew up around plants, and love lazy gardening (better eating by doing a little pleasant activity), I know that many people are daunted, uninterested, or feel that they don't have time. With some local teamwork, you can have a garden anyway!

Find a local group/website if there is one (e.g. Portland Yardsharing) and start from there. Or visit the Hyperlocavore social network and ask there.

Enjoy!

An unconventional architect, Joseph Esherick emphasized practicality over ostentatious design. While big may be showy and attention getting, Esherick designed functional living spaces that were sometimes remarkably small.

A mere 875 square feet, the house is made from inexpensive materials though its spatial arrangements are quite complex. Ironically perhaps, the current owner, Jim Friedman, builds $10 million to $20 million 20,000-square-foot houses for a living. “The Esherick house has taught me that really great architecture doesn’t require gilding a lily,” he said. - via Utopia by the Sea - NYTimes.com.

Yet another demonstration that technology's best contribution to our quality of living is not through conspicous consumption, but through wise design and providing just what is needed.

We recently looked at the Green Powered Wiki - and we'd still like to make contact with the team behind that effort, and know if they're still interested in co-creating a knowledge base for renewable energy.

But let's look at a green wiki which is still online - Playgreen, a wiki on green living.

Some observations:

• Topics covered are similar to the Appropedia wiki - both have howtos and organizational profiles but Playgreen is more focused on green living, without the emphasis on sharing designs and project write-ups.
• It hasn't been active recently - just 2 or 3 edits per month. Spam is an issue.
• Playgreen uses a true open license, without noncommercial restrictions - specifically the Creative Commons Share Alike  CC-BY-SA license, which Appropedia also uses. It's good to know that we can share content with complete ease.
• Okay, not quite complete ease - the wiki uses a different markup (way of representing formatting) which I've never seen before. I get a bit impatient with having to several different kinds of markup on all the sites I post to. On the plus side, it's relatively easy to figure out.
• The skin is quite slick - better than our MediaWiki skin (development of which is on the backburner until we can get help from a CSS wizard).
• I can't find history page for each wiki page, so I can't revert the spam I found tonight. I also can't find a statistics page.
• There seems to be no site map or category structure.
• I've sent a message via the contact form at least twice in the past couple of years, suggesting we explore collaboration. Either they're not interested, the form is broken, or (maybe the most likely) it's one of hundreds of messages they haven't answered yet because they have day jobs. We know all about that.

So, it's an interesting effort, but it's stalled. There are clearly still people who visit the site and contribute, but there's a lack of critical mass to fill the need for quality green living info.

But the great thing about Playgreen is the use of a proper open license. That means that even if the site doesn't take off, these contributions of green wisdom can live on and grow in different forms - the "no such thing as waste" principle applied to the labors of green wiki contributors.

By the way - check out our green living info. It's a very different layout to Playgreen, and perhaps not as well packaged, but there's a growing collection, and I hope it's usable - please give feedback!

This is part of the green wiki series.

In 1993, the FDA approved the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), otherwise known as bovine somatotropin (rbST), in cows. Farmers inject this synthetic hormone into their animals to increase their milk production. This practice has been banned in Europe, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

via Organic Milk - Hormones rBGH and rbST in Milk - thedailygreen.com.

I'm not going to get into the details of the good and bad of rbST - but the Wikipedia article refers to European Union and Canadian government reports that the use of rBST substantially increases health problems in the cattle. The effect on human health is less clear, it seems, but causing suffering to the animals that produce our food is something I want to avoid.

I also find that organic milk tastes better, and organic dairy farmers seem to pay more attention to the animals' welfare (if only to get certification and keep their customers happy - that's how capitalism works, after all). Considering all this, I do now have a strong preference for organic milk, and will go without milk rather than use milk from system that abuses its animals in this way. We'll see how strong my willpower is. And yes, I already knew they abused the animals, but this brought it home.

There's a bigger picture here: that's the question of how we attain abundance. Consumerism might be rejected by us green folks, but having plenty of tasty food to eat is something people around the world aspire to, especially those who don't have enough.

So, let's admit we want it - that simple living is fine up to a point, but most of us don't want to live on a meager diet, or pay through the nose for our staple foods. Let's ask: can we attain abundance and at the same time protect the world that supports us, and without compromising on issues like humane treatment of animals?

This is not just the better way, it's the only way. Selling "being hungry and paying through the nose" just doesn't look promising. Selling thrivability means building and showing a path to change - it's hard work, but an achievable outcome, and one that we're continuing to strive for.

How do we achieve this? How we advance towards "thrivability" rather than just sustainability? This is something that we explore together on the wiki, and something that we'll look at in coming blog posts. Stay tuned!

Photo credit: Fake cow by macieklew, open-licensed under CC-BY-SA