Conservation

It seems to me that a good number of important things need to be made more widely known and understood and it is up to us to master the art of consciousness raising so that we can spread the word and lead the way forward in humanity's evolution. The women's rights and civil rights movements showed the way forward for big important truths to find acceptance and justice for all. It may begin with people teaching their friends to use reusable shopping bags and CFL bulbs but those could build confidence and sharing abilities to the point that we can tackle much larger matters.

The Inventory and Actions lists are two new collaborative Drupal systems online now for registered users to use.

Inventory allows you to list the things you have, the wishlist of things you want, requests for things you need help getting, and offers for things you can give.

Actions allows you to post tasks, feature requests, bug reports and support requests into a big to-do list. Have an idea for the site? Post it. Want to help develop the site? Choose an unassigned task and assign it to yourself to work on.

Both of these listings are searchable and both are somewhat clunky to use still but they will gain much more sophisticated interfaces soon. There is already an action underway to improve the way these work!

Actions is already being used with Nihi and Doobius tackling the first Drupal tasks ever to be delegated and loads of site ideas are going up for future consideration.

Inventory is already being used to request equipment from AgentSubversion.

In researching some things on my own wishlist, I discovered a new cause I believe strongly about: Plastic bags. We waste a TRILLION plastic bags every year, a million every second. In a world at war over oil, this is completely insane and costs American and Iraqi lives.

Anyone who uses free plastic bags is LETTING THE TERRORISTS WIN!

I'm going to become a reusable bags activist. I'm going to order a 4 pack of Workhorse black bags and buy a whole bunch of cheap $1 bags to give away to people to get them to buy in.

This issue is so fundamentally black and white that it is easy to see how it will become an excellent example of starter issues we can show people how to pursue that can appeal to everyone without alienating anyone. If you can supply everyone you know with reusable bags Facebook checklist style, you will have gained immense skill and confidence in your abilities as an activist and advocate for good things. Imagine what people will be able to do next once they accomplish this.

I've added my wishlisted bags to my inventory. If you want some bags, add them to your wishlist too!