Ran across a nonprofit organization called the Sunlight Foundation. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to providing Internet tools for educating the American public about the democratic process and making the federal political process more transparent. Their best known project is Congresspedia, a wiki encyclopedia in which individuals (presumably from the US) can edit and view information about the US Congress, its politicians, legislation, etc.
Sunlight’s latest tool is the pop-up politician. It’s a AJAX widget that’s similar to Google Maps’ pop ups in which a profile of a Congress person appears when you move your mouse over a related bit of information. You can download the widget to be used for your own website or blog.
Wouldn’t it be cool to have a foundation like this for the environment, in which cutting edged Internet tools were developed (and evaluated!) for the environmental community? I can already see the possibilities: the pop-up David Suzuki or Gary Snyder. it would be even better to have a Flash-like animated pop-up. Then you could have, for example, Inuit elders pop up to discuss the impacts of global warming. The possibilities are endless.
What a cool idea! It’s a little beyond our current gambit, but this is exactly the kind of creative thinking we’re hoping to ignite!
I’ll see if I can convince an enterprising student to take it up.