Treasure Valley & Boise River Restoration and Recreation GeoWeb Project

Today I wrote the following message to a few people related to the upcoming Idaho Environmental Forum Annual Conference which is showcasing Treasure Valley River Restoration and Recreation projects.

I am including a Google Map here to identify the Geographic places that will be discussed at the conference. I can imagine collaborative maps like these linked together to identify thousands of places where restoration and recreation projects are of interest to citizens who may also want to be involved by submitting photographs, data, or attending decision making decisions.

View Treasure Valley River, ID/ GeoWeb in a larger map

_________________________________

My reason for writing this to you now is to suggest the development of an ongoing Geoweb networking project starting during, and continuing after, the Idaho Environmental Forum Conference next week titled: "A River Runs Through It: Showcasing River Restoration and Recreation Projects."

If you have an interest in this development please reply as soon as possible and I will see if this topic can be briefly introduced at the IEF conference next Wednesday August 12.

I will include some background information about this important topic I hope will be helpful to you. Please share this with other people who you think will be interested.

If you have any questions I will be happy to try to answer them.

Regards,

Gary

Gary O. Grimm

Mountain Visions

gogrimm@mountainvisions.com

http://www.mountainvisions.com

Work phone 208-336-2992

Cell phone 208-585-7512

Blog=

http://garyogrimm.blogspot.com

Brief Background and some links of interest. A more complete Biography available upon request.

For many years I have been involved in helping Idaho, northwest and nationwide citizen groups, local organizations, and State and Federal agencies provide rich text, photographic and multimedia information about "geographically located" and "time based" watershed restoration projects. For the past 15 + years many of these efforts have been related to the Internet and the World Wide Web. Many of these web based projects have included opportunities for citizen involvement and engagement.

Over the past few years there has been a tremendous surge in information about web applications that define "The Geospatial Web - How Geobrowsers, Social Software, and the Web 2.0 are shaping the Network Society." This is the title of an important book published in 2007. Many conferences and seminars on related topics are now constantly available worldwide. GeoWeb 2009, Where2.0, Web Squared, and ESRI User Conferences are a few examples. (links below)

Today there is beginning a huge new opportunity for many more citizens who have technical and environmental interests in watersheds to become involved in contributing meta tagged "Citizen Science" and "open source content or data" including photos, GIS data, reports, monitoring studies and other information to appropriate location based or Geoweb sites. As this place and time based information accumulates it will result in the opportunity for any person using the web to locate a wealth of historical and contemporary data about a special place of interest. Citizens with the opportunity to become involved, informed and educated about issues related to these special places will be much better able to actively participate in future decision making processes.

During the past few years I had been attempting to encourage organizers and participants in groups such as the Idaho Environmental Summit and others to develop a system of "Online - All the time" networking discussion efforts related to at least 15 of the major environmental issues discussed during the Summits from 2006-2009. Last fall I produced an Online presentation related to these new Geoweb networking opportunities. This project and my thoughts about it are generally being updated on my Blog, and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other networking pages. Below is a link to the home page of that presentation, which can serve as a guide to initiatives and projects that can be used for a potential broad based Boise River/ Treasure Valley River Geoweb Watershed project.

Geoweb Common Adventure Networking

Below is a link to interactive and community based watershed web site projects I have been involved in. The first link provides links to several dated projects from the past. We are currently working with the River Menders project in Idaho, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe in Nevada, Jamaica Protected Areas, and the Prince of Wales Island Tongass National Forest in Alaska, and I will provide those links too. I should note we are having current discussions with the Portneuf River Watershed in Pocatello about developing a similar citizen based GeoWeb project as is possible with the Boise River Watershed. I should also mention that we produced the Ridge to Rivers Web site in the year 2000, that could, and should be, updated to include GeoWeb data, discussions and citizen science projects. This could provide a model for other projects throughout the Boise River Watershed.

Mountain Visions Watershed related links

River Menders - Idaho Native Riparian Habitat

Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Water Quality Monitoring Program

Jamaica Protected Areas Trust

Prince of Wales Island, Tongass National Forest 2007 Google Earth tour demo (Web site & 2009 material now being produced)

Portneuf Basin Pulse (The site below contains real time sensor information now for several geographic locations and plans are to more fully develop the web site with many more citizen science location opportunities, geoweb networking, educational programs, etc.)

Boise / Ridge to Rivers Trail System

Below are a few links to the Book and conferences mentioned above:

The Geospatial Web - How Geobrowsers, Social Software, and the Web 2.0 are shaping the Network Society

GeoWeb 2009

Where 2.0 Conference

Web Squared Conference

ESRI International User Conference

Many more references and links available upon request. Please comment here or send to my email address noted above.

Geospatial Revolution Project & 2 Mountain Visions productions

Over the past few years I have been tracking and recording trends related to the Geospatial web and other new networking opportunities that can empower citizens to become more informed and active in environmental current affairs and decision making. As part of this effort I created a presentation for the Idaho Environmental Summit last November titled "GeoWeb Common Adventure Networking." On this blog and other participatory opportunities I will attempt to add interesting information as time permits.

A few days ago I was alerted by a message from the Idaho Geospatial Office List Server about a very interesting and informative web site and video trailer titled the "Geospatial RevolutionProject -- The location of anything is becoming everything." This is a project of the Penn State Public Broadcasting. The video trailer is at the top of the web page.

In Summary text under a topic "THE PROJECT" notes that 'We live in the Global Location Age. “Where am I?” is being replaced by, “Where am I in relation to everything else?”

Text under a "THE NEED TO KNOW" topic states: "Geospatial information influences nearly everything. Seamless layers of satellites, surveillance, and location-based technologies create a worldwide geographic knowledge base vital to solving myriad social and environmental problems in the interconnected global community."

As I watched the video I was reminded of two similar Geospatial educational projects we (Mountain Visions) produced in the year 2000.

The first of these was titled a "Virtual Exploration of GIS", a short series of multimedia tutorials to explain the basic concepts of Geographic Information Systems, and was prepared as an Interactive multimedia CD-ROM and an interactive web site. Sponsors the production included the Remote Sensing and GIS Laboratory and Landscape and Ecology Modeling and Analysis Center at Utah State University and the Bureau of Land Management National Training Center. The original purpose of this project was to be a presentation tool for BLM workshops helping land managers and other citizens understand how GIS technology works and how to use it. The web site version of the project also became a popular educational tool for colleges and other GIS training projects. This project was awarded "First Place for Multimedia" at the ESRI International User Conference that year.

Another multimedia program we created in 2000 was titled "Understanding the Nature of Ecosystems Through Science" and explained the history of how maps were created for Yellowstone National Park and how hyperspectral satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS technology was being developed to help solve ecosystem issues. (Note that this was originally produced for a CD-ROM presentation for the "Yellowstone Ecosystem Studies" project and was subsequently reduced in window size for acceptable presentation on the web at that time. The window size now could fill the computer screen for future projects of a similar nature.)

Democratic Caucus -Boise, Idaho- Too Full!!

Images below are loaded from last on top to the first on the bottom. I will post this now and come back and organize it better later. Thousands of people were in lines snaking around buildings trying to get into the Arena. We made it into the lobby, but they told us the Fire Marshall said the Arena was completely full. They would take our ballot, and our vote would count. We left and thought we would get a cup of coffee, but the cafe was full too. A half hour later there were still people waiting outside the door. (Top Photo)

Barack Obama - Boise, Idaho - Community and Environmental Service

Senator Barack Obama visited Idaho and gave a campaign speech in Boise, to about 14,000 people on February 2, 2008. (Notice in the photo to the right, taken by Katy Flanagan on a cell phone, that only a few seats are empty and these are located directly behind a curtain and a crowd of standing people hiding a view of Obama) This was an absolutely amazing turnout for a Democrat in possibly the most conservative Republican State in the U.S. The media and conversations on the street indicate that there will probably be a record number of participants in the Idaho Democratic Caucus being held tonight, February 5. Katy and I plan to participate.

Obama's campaign speech was inspiring and full of good ideas of hope and action for our country in the near future. One of the action themes both Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton (and possibly some Republicans) are developing will provide more opportunities for citizens to perform some significant community/public service contribution. This will apply especially to college students who have had to borrow money for their education, and the service will reduce this debt.

I would expect that many of these community/public service action opportunities could be oriented to environmental and ecosystem restoration and recovery efforts. In addition, I assume that people of all ages, including younger students, families, older citizens, and community groups will also be encouraged to initiate or become involved in the same public service projects.

Advancements in Social Networking software, including new ways to explore, create and share geospatial maps, semantic data, photographs and animated visualizations that I have discussed in this Blog are tools that should help make the next generation of participation in environmental social service a lot of short run productive fun. Collectively, this effort should also provide much better and needed long range environmental and ecosystem decisions.

AskWiki - Semantic Web Beta test

A November 1, online article on the Wired Blog Network titeled "AskWiki: Wikipedia Knows What You're Thinking" provides information about a new "beta testing" Semantic Web development called AskWiki. The article explains that "AskWiki is a new partnership between AskMeNow and the Wikimedia Foundation, which integrates some of the semantic web and natural language features of AskMeNow into Wikipedia searches. The AskWiki engine is able to parse natural language statements and returns specific answers rather than just relevant articles." (See below for an AskWiki test question I asked!)

The article notes that Grant Cohen of AskMeNow, who headed the development of AskWiki "concedes that AskWiki is not perfect, which is why it’s still in a beta testing phase. “it’s still new, still young,” says Cohen, but even so it’s fairly impressive."

"Right now when you ask a question AskWiki provides a set of links to label an answer correct, incorrect or uncertain. And in the cases where the answer is incorrect or uncertain you can provide the correct answer, which is then fed back into the engine so the next person that comes along has a better chance of finding the answer to their question."

As a test, I asked the following question about Idaho, the State where I live: Where is the Frank Church Wilderness Area? The answer was not correct and I was able to note this on the Ask Wiki response. However the response did contain a link to the Wikipedia entry for Frank Church, a deceased Senator from Idaho. After creating an AskWiki account I was able to edit the Wiki page to provide the answer that "The Frank Church Wilderness Area is located in the central part of the State of Idaho in the United States." I also cut and pasted relevant information about how the Wilderness was created and named from the Frank Church Wikipedia page. I note that my edited changes have now been added to AskWiki. I also edited the incorrect information when I asked AskWiki "What is the capitol of the State of Idaho? by adding Boise and a link to the Wikipedia page for Boise, Idaho.

Wolves, Ecosystem Research & the Semantic Web

In Boise, Idaho last night I attended a public meeting to hear the public present testimony about the U.S Fish & Wildlife Proposed Revision Regulating Gray Wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains. During the hearing I thought about all of the other similar environmental issue public hearings I have attended over the years and how ecosystem research can be organized into a more usable form as we start to apply technology being developed for the Semantic Web. I believe people want to know that reputable science can be explained by scientists, understood by citizens, and that it is used for ecosystem management and decision making processes.

This wolf meeting was posted in the Federal Register, Vol. 72, No. 129/ Friday, July 6, 2007, and would revise earlier wolf management rules in the following ways.

1. "... to modify the definition of ‘‘unacceptable impacts’’ to wild ungulate populations so that States and Tribes with Service-approved post-delisting wolf management plans can better address the impacts of a biologically recovered wolf population on ungulate populations and herds while wolves remain listed.

2. "...allow private citizens in States or on Tribal lands with approved post-delisting wolf management plans to take wolves that are in the act of attacking their stock animals or dogs."

Many people who testified in Boise lamented the short amount of public notice that was given. Similar meetings were also held in Helena, Montana, July 18 and Cody, Wyoming, July 17. (The Federal Register text also suggests several ways citizens can comment about this proposal and provides hand delivery, mail and e-mail address)

I was struck by the number of comments decrying the limited amount of scientific knowledge that exists about ecosystems upon which decisions regarding wild animals like wolves and elk are being based today. Many also complained that too often decisions are based on emotion, politics and economy rather than science, and this is especially true when State governments are given control.

One person testifying also thought we should consider the recent news about a number of federal officials and scientists in America who have admitted they have been "ordered" to censor and edit scientific findings in the last several years. One glaring example is that overwhelming scientific evidence has concluded for several years that humans are effecting global warming, but we now know that citizens have been confused because of political, economic and media manipulation and interpretation of the science. Is it possible that this is also happening with scientific information about ecosystems which include elk and wolf populations?

I assume that quite a bit of ecosystem science surrounding elk and wolf habitat has been produced by Federal and State agencies, Universities, environmental organizations, and even private businesses and industry groups. However, I don't know of an efficient and effective way for any of us to find detailed scientific information about complex ecosystem issues that might include Elk and wolves, and would certainly also involve a multitude of other species and a complex web of interrelationships that are important.

I should note that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is following legal federal policies in the Federal Register notice and is inviting independent "Peer Review" comments ... "to ensure that our final rule is based on scientifically sound data, assumptions, and analyses."

Assuming that the names and affiliations of individuals and/or organizations that have been invited to be peer reviewers will be identified to the public, it also seems reasonable that their own research and publications and those studies they reference in support or non-support of the proposed rule changes would also be identified. It also seems reasonable that the location and accessibility of all of the data bases of information and specific scientific ecosystem studies related to Elk and wolf habitat that exist for Federal and State agencies, Universities, environmental organizations, businesses and industries could also be identified and published at the same time.

My understanding is that the development of the Semantic Web and publishing on the Internet will greatly aid scientists and the public alike in being able to find detailed and reputable scientific information about general and specific topics. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), predicted in Nature Web debates, in 2001 that the semantic web “will likely profoundly change the very nature of how scientific knowledge is produced and shared, in ways that we can now barely imagine.”

One example of how the Semantic Web is already beginning to function was reported in TMCnet.com in a November 22, 2005 article titled, "W3C Launches Group Linking Medical Industry with Semantic Web."

A very good statement explaining why the Semantic Web is impotrant and how it can be expected to benefit the entire life science community is found in a draft article Tim Clark submitted in February 13, 2006 for discussion to the W3C Knowledge Ecosystem Task Force.

"Problem Statement

Scientific knowledge discovery, publication and discourse can be understood as a knowledge ecosystem containing numerous lifecycle processes. Currently, information in this ecosystem is produced, moves within and is exchanged across public, corporate, private, institutional, and collaboration ownership spaces in the form of millions of semantically uncharacterized digital resources.

Scientists and health care providers increasingly rely on these resources to an extraordinary degree.

These digital resources can potentially be richly interconnected and contextualized in terms of one another. Establishing these interconnections is part of the process of creating, sharing, discussing, publishing and consuming new knowledge. However, such ecosystem process activities are not currently well-supported by digital models, because information interconnections across processes in the “knowledge ecosystem” currently lack a complete machine-accesible semantic characterization.

For example, there is currently no widely recognized machine-accessible semantic differentiation between a manuscript and a publication; or between an illustration and experimental image data; or between an experiment, its data, the data interpretation, and the hypothesis the experiment was designed to validate.

This problem exists across multiple scientific domains. We believe that solving the semantic characterization problem at the common level of knowledge processes, can facilitate not only the organization and exchange of knowledge within domains but across them. This will be particularly important in goal-oriented clinical research but can be expected to benefit the entire life science and health care community."

More recent information about how we can all start to contribute to and use the concepts of the Semantic Web is readily available. I referred to Noah Spivac's contribution in my blog post of November 16, 2006, titled, The Semantic Web -Minding the Planet, by Nova Spivack.

A July 3, 2007 article in Business 2.0 article titled, "What's next for the Internet"
Noah Spivac and his company Radar Networks and other big Internet companies are working to develop tools which will impose order on "one of the hottest buzzwords in computer science today: the Semantic Web." Another article on July 9, 2007 in Business Week titled, "A Web That Thinks Like You" also describes the Semantic Web software work that Radar Networks is developing "could help transform the net."

And finally, yesterday I found a Firefox Browser extension called Piggy Bank, that will let us publish Semantic Web data on our web sites now. The Wiki for Piggy Bank provides a download, installation instructions and several pages of instructions for users.

A Delighful Description of the Visible Universe

Anthony Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho and has written a delightful story about the Visible Universe as photographed by the Hubble Deep Field Telescope in 2003. Published in the July/August 2007 Issue of Orion Magazine the article is titled, Window of Possibility -"Why the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is the most incredible photograph ever taken."

Doerr's humerous numerical and comparative analysis should provide us with a much needed perspective of our importance and place in the universe. Please read the whole article. Below are a few quotes to whet your interest.

"Earth is a clump of iron and magnesium and nickel, smeared with a thin layer of organic matter, and sleeved in vapor. It whirls along in a nearly circular orbit around a minor star we call the sun."

"The sun comprises 99.9 percent of all the mass in the solar system. Which means Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc., all fit into that little 0.1 percent."

"But, truly, our sun is exceedingly minor. Almost incomprehensibly minor."

"We call our galaxy the Milky Way. There are at least 100 billion stars in it and our sun is one of those."

"There very well may be more galaxies in the universe than there are stars in the Milky Way."

What the Ultra Deep Field image ultimately offers is a singular glimpse at ourselves. Like Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, it resets our understanding of who and what we are."

"The Hubble Ultra Deep Field image should be in every classroom in the world. It should be on the president’s desk. It should probably be in every church, too."

Barry Lopez Encourages Conversations

Tonight, in Boise, Barry Lopez told us about storytelling and how the words and ideas of a storyteller can, and should, have the outcome of encouraging new conversations and ideas in a community.

This Blog post gives me the opportunity to add my own comments to the story I heard Barry Lopez tell. I should note that an audience member asked Barry if the story he told tonight was written down anywhere for others to read? My interpretation of his response was that it was not written down anywhere except in the notes he held in his hand, and that we in the audience should go out and tell our own stories about what we think is important. He also said that if his talk stimulated this further conversation he had done his job. Here, tonight, I will add a few of my own initial comments to start doing my share.

Barry talked about the growing interest by individuals to participate in their communities and to take on the role of helping to solve problems and providing future opportunities that current Federal, State and local governments are not. He believes young people are especially motivated in this direction, but all of us, even older generations, can and should be integrally involved as well.

I met Barry a few times in the late 1960's when we both lived on the McKenzie River near Eugene, Oregon. He was a young writer, gaining a reputation and I was involved at the University of Oregon in a community outdoor recreation and environmental networking project that had connections in many colleges and communities in North America. For more than a decade from the early 60's until the late 70's much has been written about the tremendous citizen collaboration and community participation in environmental issues with people of all ages that helped create a positive environmental perspective on the future in America and around the world. Many people in the Boise audience tonight may have also been involved in this exhilarating and exciting process.

Somehow, this "flash" of energetic citizen involvement seems to have been diminished over the last 25 + years. I believe Barry Lopez told a story tonight about how these conversations and community involvement can be revived and that we should expect current and future generations to again imagine and shape the future in positive ways.

Barry Lopez left us tonight with a very positive message and "Hope" for the future.

There were many other parts to the story that Barry told tonight about polar bears, climate issues, and people he has met in other countries. As he writes and tells these stories I know people are encouraged to start good conversations with friends and neighbors in their own communities. And, as Barry also noted that the good storyteller fades into the background as this happens.

Thank you, Barry Lopez.

His talk and story in Boise was provided by "The Cabin Literary Center."

Western States Unite to fight Global Warming

Today, the governors of five western states agreed to work together to reduce greenhouse gases by forming the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative. Articles in News Channel 21 in Oregon, and in the Seattle Post Inteligencer explain that Washington, Oregon, Arizona, California, and New Mexico announced the plan at the annual Winter meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington D.C. .

Idaho is not one of the states - yet! The time has come for concerned citizens to become much more proactive in petitioning our Governor and other state leaders to join this regional plan, or explain publicly why they won't. This issue has to go beyond the silly game of politics we often see. Clearly, for our own future and future generations, we have to start creating positive actions now to slow down the pollution and greenhouse gases problems we are causing in Idaho, the U.S. and the World.

I submit that a strong effort to promote this communication with our Idaho state leaders could take place in the next 8 weeks as the International Equinoctial Earth Day March 21, the Step It Up - 2007 event April 14, and Earth Day April 22 are being organized. In Idaho as elsewhere, individual citizens, community organizations, environmental groups, churches, businesses, and schools are all starting to take a role in reducing greenhouse emissions. We have every right to expect our state and federal government to help us with this effort now and in the future.

In earlier posts I have discussed similar issues and actions. See especially February 05, 2007,

Lisa Stifler in the Seattle PI, notes that the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative sets out to:

"-- Create a regional target for reducing greenhouse gases within 6 months.

--Establish over the next 18 months a mechanism for meeting that target, which may mean creating a cap-and-trade system that would allow utilities or businesses that are beating the target to sell others the right to pollute.

-- Create a five-state registry for tracking and managing greenhouse gas emissions."

Stifler's article also notes that, "The initiative is being designed so that additional states and provinces can sign on, said Kathleen Drew, Gregoire's climate policy expert. Leaders in British Columbia have expressed interest in the plan, she said. And it could provide a framework for a national program for combating climate change."

Idaho Climate Actions

On February 22 I met with about 10 people to discuss ideas for the Step It Up 2007 event to be held in Boise on April 14. My own input was that we should be learning how to use Social Networking tools to empower citizens to learn how to take action every day in the future - and that this single day event should be aimed at this objective. The meeting resulted in the formation of a Yahoo Discussion Group where some messages have already been exchanged. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday February 27. (More detailed information is available on the Step It Up Boise Yahoo web site.)

On February 16, 2007 I created a new Environment page and Posted the following article on the local.wikia.com section for Boise, Idaho.

Idaho Cities join Climate Protection Agreement

Boise Mayor, David Beiter, Sun Valley Mayor, Jon Thorson, and Pocatello Mayor, Roger Chase have joined with over 400 other mayors nationwide to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement to make their cities more environmentally friendly.

On June 13, 2005 the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement was unanimously passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Seattle Mayor, Greg Nickels has provided a web page with detailed information and list of all the Cities in the U.S. participating.

You can find out what Mayors and their cities are doing to fight climate change, improve the local environment a conserve energy by downloading the U.S. Conference of Mayors Energy and Environment Best Practice Guide.

National Day of Climate Action

I am seeing many efforts on the Internet to engage people in Global Warming actions now and in the future. Al Gore's book and movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" is one of the most well known. An associated effort is the web site "Stop Global Warming.org" where over 600,000 people have already joined a "Virtual March." It is encouraging to see efforts to organize action groups in local communities starting in the next few months. The links below go to a specific effort to organize a National Day of Climate Action in cities across the U.S. I hope this day will extend out to actions by everyone every day of the year in the future.

I plan to attend the organizational meeting in Boise and, as I noted in my recent February 5, post, to suggest we should organize some local social networking tools to help this important action continue.

Visit the national Step it Up 2007 web site for for information about 675 similar events that are already planned in 48 states across the country!

In Boise a group of people have registered for Boise to participate in this important nationwide day on April 14, 2007 to begin to reshape our Global Warming future. If interested in attending an organizational meeting there is an online RSVP form you can send in or you can ask questions by e-mail.

An e-mail notice has been distributed that notes "Our first organizing meeting will be held on Thursday, February 22nd, at 7pm, at the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, located at 6200 N. Garrett St., in Garden City. This meeting will be to decide on what type of event we would like to have here in Boise, and then making the plans to make that even a success! We hope to see you all there!"

Local Wikia Community - Help please!

(Update Feb.17) I did get a response from DNL who is helping with the Local.wikia site.

"I saw that you added some stuff to Category:Boise, Idaho Environment. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that anyone will read it there. If you want people to find your articles, enter them into this form. At the bottom, be sure to select "Idaho" and "Boise" in the drop down boxes as prompted, and in the "tags" box, type "Environment." If you do it that way, your article will be added to the Category:Boise, Idaho Environment page automatically, and your article will have a chance at hitting the front page of the site! Let me know if you have any questions. --DNL "

My response - "Thank you DNL -- Before I saw your note above I started to write another article this morning and the Form did work."

And, as DNL suggested, two articles I wrote appeared as "Popular Articles" on the National Local.Wikia home page and also now show up on the Boise, Idaho local.wikia page.
_________________

Original Post Feb. 16/

I need some help understanding how to edit the Local Wikia pages I mentioned in my last post. For some reason some of their "help" sections do not give me the results I expect. For example the "Create" page forms do not always work.

I have been trying to add some information to the Local Wikia Community for Idaho and Boise. I was able to create a new page titled "Environment" in the Local news section and add some information about Global Warming and Climate Change. However, I am having trouble getting a link to the "New Articles" section to appear on the Boise, Idaho main page as I expected to be able to do.

Does anyone have suggestions to help me (and others) to learn how to use the Local Wikia Community efficiently?

Thanks,
Gary

Salt Lake City Green and Mayor Rocky Anderson

Related to the Salt Lake City Green project article below I am interested in how Wikis, Blogs and other Social networking concepts are developing. Boise Idaho where I live may be beginning to benefit from some of the same changing attitudes and behaviors. I will do some research and report my findings. Comments and reference information from others are welcome.

In an article titled "School of Rocky" on Grist - Environmental News and Commentary on February 6, 2007 David Roberts interviewed Salt Lake City Mayor and green innovator Rocky Anderson who states that "Sustained progressive change has got to come from people who care. Most people in this country do care, very deeply. The reason our elective officials don't do anything to bring about positive change is they don't sense the people really care about it. It's not in front of them."

"But people are starting to understand that good environmental practices, good business practices, and good long-term, sustainable economic development go hand in hand."

Roberts also notes that Rocky Anderson has been instrumental in helping develop the "internationally acclaimed Salt Lake City Green program has slashed the city government's greenhouse-gas emissions, built popular support for public transit, enticed private businesses to go greener, and made Salt Lake more friendly for walkers and cyclists."

The Salt Lake City Green Web site has a news page with several video clips, an Info Center and opportunities to get involved in the e2 Business Program and many local environmental initiatives.

Al Gore - Positive Idaho News

Kudos to the Idaho Statesman for their positive editorial today on Al Gore's speech and a "Call to action." Hopefully this will simulate more local citizens to become more actively involved in personal and local organizational efforts to control pollution causing Global warming. I am considering trying to start a Wiki group to help share project ideas and efforts that already exist and to stimulate ideas for new projects. I will write more about this as time permits. Comments are welcome!

On January 23, the morning after Al Gores speech in Boise this week The Idaho Statesman published an article by Anne Wallace Allen titled "Gore charms, daunts crowd of 10,000 at Taco Bell Arena." Even though the article accurately reported that the crowd was cheerful and raucus, I wondered about the word "daunt" in the title, a few paragraphs about a "half dozen" protesters and a final negative sentence from one student, leaving the speech halfway through, that "He's not a scientist; he's a politician."

I looked at the online version of the paper today to see if anyone was commenting about this first, article and the slight impression of despair and pessimism I felt was implied by the earlier Anne Wallace Allan article. I did not find any public comments yet, but was encouraged to see the Idaho Statesman has written a new and very interesting Opinion > Editorial titled, "Our View: This is the time for action on warming."

The new statesman opinion does not apply the term "daunt" (discourage) to Al Gore, but did apply the words "denial and despair" to our politicians and those people who are convinced that we do not need to change our behavior - "in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence" that global warming caused by human activities is real. This opinion states a much more positive review of Al Gores speech quoted below:

This is no time for denial or despair. It's a time for action. If it originates at the local or state level, so be it. In a 105-minute speech on global warming Monday night, former Vice President Al Gore took on the skeptics and the doomsayers — and challenged Idahoans to lobby on behalf of the planet they'll pass on to their children.

The opinion article also noted that Gore argues effectively that "Idaho is not immune." "Climate change contributes to disease and wildfire in the forests. Global warming could bring drier summers and lower streamflows — while early snowmelt and spring storms provide a recipe for flooding. On top of that, he says, Idaho soil could lose up to 30 percent of its moisture, essential to growing." The article also notes that Gore gave examples of companies, cities (including Boise), and the global community that is already creating examples by making contributions. The article continues with the following comments that I quote.

"As Gore aptly puts it, political will is a renewable resource. Boise's political will poses a model to other Treasure Valley cities, and to state leaders."

"A Republican Legislature and a Republican governor may be tempted to scoff at the Democrat Gore's challenge to tackle global warming. But they should not dismiss Boise City Hall's commitment."

"And they would be foolish to ignore a sellout crowd of 10,000, engaged enough to pack a basketball arena on a Monday night to hear a presentation on global warming. It was the largest audience to hear Gore's presentation in one sitting, said Garry Wenske, executive director of Boise State University's Frank Church Institute, which sponsored the speech."

As I am about to post this I also read another interesting online story in the "New West" - The Voice of the Rocky Mountains. Dated 1-22-07 and written by Jennifer Gelband the article is titled "Gore Speaks; Now's Your Chance to Respond." Several comments are available.

Boosting Social Environmental Networking in Idaho

Al Gore and David C. Korten:

This month these two important speakers will be in Boise, Idaho and large crowds are expected to listen to their arguments for citizens to become more involved in public environmental affairs. Social networking tools I have been writing about here can dramatically increase these opportunities if we learn how to use them more effectively. I suggest that public discussion and action groups could form after these two influential speakers leave Boise. This effort could tie in with the topics presented at the Idaho Environmental Summit in December would be a good starting point. On this Blog I wrote about these possibilities on November 29 and December 12, 2006.

Former Vice President, Al Gore will be the keynote speaker at the Frank Church Institute Conference on Public Affairs in Boise, Idaho January 22, 2007. The conference is titled "Global Warming: Beyond the Inconvenient Truth" and will be held at Boise State University. Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" has become an outreach effort to mobilize local citizens to fight global warming.

Also well known as a person who popularized the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990's, Al Gore was the keynote speaker at the 1992 Frank Church Conference, where "Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit" his newly released book at the time was the theme.

On January 19, David C. Korten will be speaking about his new book "The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community." Sponsored by the Boise Unitarian Fellowship and many co-sponsor groups, the book and lecture are part of a plan "to advance Earth Community Dialogues aimed at changing the conversation about our local, national and global possibilities."

Both of these men have already been promoting the development of local civic action groups during their lectures and on their web sites. I am interested in identifying groups that do actually form and how they communicate using the Internet. Anyone else reading this Blog is welcome to participate in this effort.