Getting information to consumers about the products they buy

WorldChanging ran a great post on the GreenScanner, a public database of consumer opinions about the environmental accountability of over 600,000 products. Basically the Green Scanner is a website that allows a user to enter the UPC from the bar code label on a product and get information about the product. Green scanner focuses on environmental issues around the product, however, there was a great discussion in the comments section of the post about other projects brewing to provide consumers with other information about the products they buy. One of them is GrassCommons. Another similar concept is the Reveal Label, and yet another is the Lowdown on Logos concept from Jim Hightower’s organization. I believe that all of these systems can really work together to provide consumers with a solid picture of the products they are purchasing so each can make informed decisions based upon the issues important to them. It will require the use of standards, like a SRI Data Format that groups across the map can use and share and exchange data...

We’re made out of corn!!!

This is a great story from Science Friday about corn. The author of “Omnivores Dilemma”. Corn is in almost everything we eat, and our carbon is from corn. A bushel of corn is 56 pounds of 20% of oil consumption is for food growing, more than for transportation! Corn is over produced. And the government subsidizes corn production to the tune of 50 cents a bushel. There is a dead zone size of NJ in the Gulf of Mexico caused by nitrate fertilizer runoff from Iowa! Listen the audio. I might try to read the book. Basically the message is: we make choices that support the cultivation of corn to the exclusion of other healthier...

Drupal Camp New York

Drupal Camp NYC will be an opportunity of people interested in Drupal and developers interested in learning to develop sites with drupal to get together and learn from each other.

DrupalCampNYC and 3 of our sites get a plug from Micah Sifry

Deanna Zandt (who we work with on the Jim Hightower sites) pointed out that Micah Sifry referenced JimHightower.com along with a number of other Drupal sites over on the PDF Blog along with DrupalCampNYC which we are sponsoring and helping to organize along with Noel Hidalgo (the man on the ground) and some other folks. Two other CivicActions Empowered sites were mentioned: Jerry Brown, and ACLU.TV. DrupalCampNYC will be May 13th and 14th, the PDF is May 15th, all in...