by Elaine Cohen

This week, for the first time, Apple disclosed the names of most of the suppliers in its supply chain. The list, which appeared alongside the company's 2012 Supplier Responsibility Report, represents some 97 percent of Apple's procurement expenditures for materials, manufacturing, and assembly of Apple products worldwide. It includes names of well-known and reputable multinational companies as well as unknown local companies in several countries.

The news of the disclosure has been hailed as progress, though not without reference to Apple's alleged complicity in a long string of human rights violations in its supply chain: the spate of Foxconn suicides; explosions and other workplace issues; alleged chemical poisoning of workers at Wintek; and a host of additional human rights abuses in Apple contractor factories including low wages, unpaid overtime, lack of adequate safety measures and more.

The iTransparency Route

Perhaps these accusations-many of which seem to have substance-have now reached such a critical mass that Apple feels that the brand image of its otherwise impressive product range may start to suffer irreparable damage. Perhaps Apple has understood that there is more to be gained than lost in taking the iTransparency route.

Is There An App for That?

Whatever the reason for the disclosure, the fact remains that Apple is several years late. In the apparel sector, such disclosures have been common practice for some years now with Nike being the first to make a full disclosure of suppliers in 2005, followed by Levi Strauss, Gap and others. Hewlett-Packard disclosed their supplier list with their 2007 Sustainability Report.

(Ironically, the ultimate in sustainability mobility has to be the flurry of Sustainability Report applications for your iPhone or iPad.A quick visit to the iTunes App store will leave you spoiled for choice. You can download for free the sustainability reports of Royal BAMGroup NV, Kmart, Wacker, Prudential, Corio, Chemring, MAN Trucks, Itau Unibanco, Fuji Xerox and more, and take them with you wherever you go.

Yet, while Apple's technology and innovation have enabled everyone else to weave their transparency offerings into the intimate lives of citizens-consumers-investors-employees everywhere, the company itself resisted transparency for so long.)

But this is not only about transparency for its own sake.

Intent to Disclose: Motivating Factors for Apple

Underlying the move to disclose supplier names is an admission that stakeholders are entitled to information, which may affect their purchasing decisions. It is also the intimation of a willingness to engage both in dialogue about supply chain issues and accept the criticisms that may follow.

Even more importantly, Apple's disclosure reveals a genuine willingness to do things better, in an area of business which all global companies with outsourced supply chains have never ceased to grapple with: No company has excelled at eliminating human rights abuses in extended supply chains; No company has recorded perfect scores in supplier audits.

Despite the huge amount of resources ploughed into monitoring, auditing, training, warning, incentivizing and, if all else fails, terminating contracts, outsourced suppliers are just not getting it right 100 percent of the time.

Taking Stock: Supply Chain Transparency

Apple conducted 229 factory audits in 2011 and reports an overall level of 74 percent compliance with required labor practices, and 64 percent compliance with management practices requirements. This means that at least a quarter of Apple facilities are not compliant.

A sample of findings from the audits:

- 93 factories were found to have more than 50 percent of employees working excessive hours.
- 90 factories did not apply appropriate hours of rest.
- 68 factories did not provide worker benefits as required by law.
- Five factories were using underage labor.

Moving Forward: Using Innovation to Solve Supply Chain Dilemmas

While it is commendable for Apple to disclose such sobering facts about its own business, all eyes remain on the firm to see how it addresses the root causes of these issues, and whether it can eliminate them from its supply chain.

More auditing, more training and more termination may not be the answer.

Perhaps Apple should focus some of its renowned innovation capability on fixing the root causes of supply chain issues, in addition to preparing the launch of iPhone 5.

Launching the report, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly wrote to all Apple employees, saying:

"No one in our industry is driving improvements for workers the way Apple is today."

The truth of that statement is a matter for debate, but the fact remains that when it comes to transparency, Apple is doing today what so many other global manufacturers started doing yesterday. It may still be too little for Apple, but it is definitely not too late.

It's key that pressure on Apple to continue to make progress, both in human rights and environmental aspects of its business, remain high. The demand for greater transparency must not cease. As we have seen, and other manufacturers have proven, there IS an App for that.

Photo by Procsilas Moscas/flickr/Creative Commons

by Beth Buczynski

We had the pleasure of an extended stay with family over the holidays. It's always funny to spend time in a home inhabited by an older couple, because you're likely to spot remnants of "the way life used to be" before cell phones and laptops took over.

One thing I noticed was that my older relatives have TONS of clothing catalogs, and more arrive in the mail almost every day. The idea of shopping from a catalog seems totally foreign to me, but they would rather thumb through the pages of a catalog rather than conduct a targeted internet search and quickly scrolling through the results.

And she's not alone.

As a recent TriplePundit article pointed out, "each year, about 19 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. It means that every American receives more than 60 catalogs every year on average. Why? Because according to the Direct Marketing Association, printed catalogs provide a 7 to 1 ROI and an impressive direct order response rate of 2.24 percent. With such impressive figures, is it surprising retailers are printing hundreds of billions of catalogs every year?"

But as the author, Raz Godelnik, goes on to state, this ROI is only impressive because neither consumers nor retailers are forced to acknowledge the immense environmental impact of this outdated marketing tactic:

- 53 million trees that produce 3.6 million tons of paper,
- 5.2 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and
- 53 billion gallons of wastewater

Thankfully, the digital revolution means that the days of print advertising, even entrenched concepts like direct mail catalogs, are numbered. And a new iPad app, Catalog Spree, hopes to speed the change by appealing to the millions who found an Apple tablet in their stocking last weekend.

The free app offers all the glossy images and browsing pleasure of a catalog with out all the planet-killing, mailbox choking paper. And unlike those paper catalogs, Catalog Spree allows shoppers to track their favorite items, share them with friends on Facebook, and receive special promotions via email.

by Kristy Hessman

Ever been wandering around outside and come across a beautiful bird and wanted to know what kind it was? Now, there's an updated app for that to help give you the answer. The National Audubon Society, fresh off a successful social media campaign around bird watching, and Green Mountain Digital are introducing an update to their Audubon Birds - A Field Guide to North American Birds mobile app.

The new, updated app uses ebird to locate birds and in real time and access information about recent sightings. The app also allows you to track and journal your personal sightings by location and share with friends by email or Facebook. And it includes an updated library of images so you'll be sure you're identifying the right bird, even when its all dressed up in its seasonal plumage.

The mobile app is available for the iPhone, iPad, Andriod phones, the HP Touchpad and the NOOK. The app ranges in price from $9.99 up to $14.99 depending on device, but is on sale for a limited time for $9.99. The app makes a perfect Christmas gift for all the bird lover's on your list this year.

"Now every birder can have the equivalent of a rare bird alert and comprehensive field guide wrapped into a single mobile app," Gary Langham, vice president and chief scientist for Audubon said in a statement. "Real time access to bird sightings in eBird backed by the huge library of species information makes Audubon Birds the ideal app for every birder."

by Eric Woods

The Green Grid has produced a useful guide to what it calls Containerized Modular Data Center Facilities, which recognizes the increasing interest in modular design and how it can help improve energy efficiency in data centers. I've tackled this subject in a previous blog but chairing the recent Green Data Center conference in London, I had the chance to hear in detail about two very different approaches to modularized design.

The first example was Verne Global's new data center campus in Iceland. In a project we documented in our Green Data Center report (soon to be updated), Verne Global is taking advantage of Iceland's climate and copious hydroelectric and geothermal energy resources to create a low-emission, energy efficient data center. The data center facilities are being supplied by Colt, which is providing pre-fabricated data center modules built in its factory in northeast England. It's using standardized components and production line manufacturing techniques to deliver energy efficient and adaptable data centers in less than four months from contract signing to onsite commissioning. The modules are expected to work to a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of around 1.15 in the advantageous Icelandic environment.

While Colt's modules are able to meet the variable demands of a co-location data center, a more specialized approach to modularization is being pioneered by Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). The background to this project is the investment the Taiwanese government is making to prepare the country's businesses for the impact of cloud computing. For example, a number of projects are looking at the cloud delivery of government services. It is also looking at how cloud computing can drive innovation in the Taiwanese IT and services sector, which brings us to the green data center project. ITRI has been tasked with developing an energy efficient modular data center that can support cloud computing.

As Paul Sun from ITRI explained, building an energy-efficient data center in subtropical regions presents significant challenges; with a typical humidity level of 70 percent, Taiwan is a far cry from Icelandic conditions. To achieve the target PUE of less than 1.3 they had to rethink how a data center is built and how it operates. The radical idea behind the project is not to think of the data center as a building to house IT equipment, but as the computer itself. This led to the development of a virtual management layer for the building facilities and an approach that seeks to unify the facilities and IT views of the data center. ITRI has been able to come up with a data center design that optimizes both infrastructure and server capability. The servers themselves are stripped down to the essentials including the removal of individual power supplies and fans. A direct DC power supply was also used to increase power efficiency. However, high density computing in a subtropical climate requires efficient cooling and this was provided by liquid cooling at the CPU level.

Much of what ITRI did in this impressive demonstration project will be out of reach for enterprise data centers, but the project shows the way cloud computing brings opportunities for efficient data center design. It also shares with Colt's approach a rapid development time - 6 months from planning to operation - and provision of shippable modules than can be quickly installed onsite.

While Colt is developing modules for the mainstream data center market, ITRI is pushing the boundaries to understand how the data center can be optimized for cloud computing and energy efficiency. However, both projects are part of an important development that will have an increasing influence on the shape of the data center.

Photo by Sean Ellis/flickr/Creative Commons

Major companies could reduce their carbon emissions by as much as 50 percent and significantly increase energy efficiency by shifting to cloud computing, according to a new report. In an analysis of UK, French, and U.S. firms that have used cloud computing for at least two years, the Carbon Disclosure Project calculated that by 2020 U.S. companies with annual revenues of more than $1 billion can save $12.3 million in energy costs and achieve carbon reductions equivalent to 200 million barrels of oil a year if they shift to shared data networks. The report said that large UK companies could achieve annual energy savings of GBP 1.2 billion if they move to cloud computing. Cloud computing - in which data can be stored, managed, and processed on external servers as needed - allows companies to buy less hardware and also improves efficiency and flexibility. According to the report - which was conducted by the independent firm Verdantix and sponsored by AT&T - large companies plan to accelerate their adoption of cloud computing from 10 percent to 69 percent of their IT spending by 2020.

Photo by NeoSpire/flickr/Creative Commons

Facebook is building Europe's largest server farm near the Arctic Circle in Sweden, because the severe cold will keep the servers cool naturally - lowering the energy required to crunch data from its 800 million users.

The Lulea Data Center, in Lulea Sweden, will be just 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Power for the mammoth 120 megawatt server farm will be supplied by nearby hydropower plants that produce twice the electricity as the Hoover Dam!

The backup alone - required to keep the servers running in the case of a blackout - is 40 MW. There will be 14 diesel generators for each of the three 300,000-square foot buildings. The project is scheduled for completion by 2014.

This is Facebook's first server farm outside the US, where it stores data in California, Oregon, Virginia and soon, North Carolina. The majority of Facebook users reside in other countries, however, so locating elsewhere will boost performance.

Facebook's Oregon and North Carolina data centers run on coal, the dominant fuel used by utilities there.

Google has a data center in southern Finland, which uses seawater from the Baltic Sea for its cooling system.

by Susan Kraemer

I am a huge fan of Google. And the company has done far more than any other company to help solve the problems of climate change by investing in game-changing renewable innovation, and even providing an education on climate change, directly. However, it's core mission - finding stuff for you - is turning out to hamper progress in a weird way.

Google tries very hard to please you by finding you more stuff just like the other stuff you clicked on last time. That is the essence of google's great cleverness. But that very brilliance is becoming more and more damaging to the shared view out to an objective fact-based world.

Who hasn't gotten exasperated with someone else's ignorance about climate change? Haven't you finally said: "look, you can just google it!"

But there turns out to be one big problem with just "googling" it. It depends on who you are.

So if last time you looked up climate change and chose to open something by, say, Marc Morano, then Senator Inhofe, and then the Drudge Report, which would all poo-poo climate change, google thinks, "oh, this moron likes denier news about climate change," and next time, more of its top suggestions for your search will be skewed even further to the right.

As you keep heading further into la-la land, Google is there, holding your hand, assuring you that indeed, this is the objective, google-able truth. Two people with different search histories get two entirely different sets of google "facts" for the identical search terms.

The problem is that science-based types, who click on the fact-laden science-based pdfs from the EPA and reports from the WRI and studies from NOAA - and then get more of these kinds of results; assume that's what everyone sees when they just "google" it, but there is no one objective science-based google.

Google has become like a good but unobtrusive butler, that always obsequiously aims to please, by always giving you more and more of what you liked last time. Ultimately, as a result, we are now all living in what we believe to be the objective, self-evidently google-able truth. And we are not.

Climate scientists keep turning out more and better climate science, and scratch their heads at the apparent lack of effect on "rational" hearts and minds, but it is simply not being found by the other side, because googling it turns up the opposition. While scientists wring their hands over the problem that they are not communicating well enough, there is nothing they can do differently.

Together with the outright (deliberate) propaganda by the 1 percent against the 99 percent, Google's (accidental) amplification of that propaganda, a mere accident of our technological history, is fueling part of the rage of this internet age. The civil war on science it amplifies - even by accident - is a danger to our survival, as it saps our commitment to change before it's too late.

by Eric Bloom

It was only a matter of time before someone in the smart building space took the best aspects of Facebook and the iPhone app store and weaved them into a solution that would help building owners, managers, and occupants harness big data to drive new levels of efficiency and building performance monitoring. Johnson Controls took a step in that direction recently when it announced the launch of the Panoptix platform at Greenbuild in Toronto.

At its core is an open technology platform that can pull together building data from systems that rarely, if ever, speak to each other - from the building automation system (BAS) to the meter system to weather data, security systems, and others.

A suite of cloud-hosted building efficiency applications allows users to link their own building management systems to the platform and start monitoring and managing their buildings. The initial suite consists of four applications:

- Continuous Diagnostics Advisor
- Measurement and Verification Monitor
- Carbon and Energy Reporter
- Custom Analyzer

Over time, Johnson Controls and its partners, such as IBM, will continue to develop new applications. By 2012, the app suite will be open to independent software developers, as well. Users buy the apps on a subscription basis rather than as a one-time purchase, thereby making them accessible and affordable to a broader base of potential customers. And the apps, of course, can be accessed from any Internet-connected device.

The platform also includes a live support system that provides online and telephone support as well as on-site building services to make the most of Panoptix - a must-have for a system that will be new and unfamiliar to many building owners and managers. In addition, a social networking system, the Panoptix Connected Community, will provide a forum for stakeholders to share resources.

Johnson Controls hopes to have a social network-like effect on building efficiency, which depends too heavily on systems that are constantly creating data but haven't been synced up. In doing so, Panoptix addresses two core issues in the building efficiency world these days. The first is the disintegrated nature of many building systems, which rely on a fragmented set of technologies, communication protocols, and standards that make it difficult for anyone but the most sophisticated building manager or energy engineer to gain useful insight into building energy use patterns and efficiency opportunities.

The second is the fact that novel advances in energy efficiency in buildings are difficult to replicate because buildings operate as islands, and lessons learned in one case may never be communicated to other building managers that could benefit from the knowledge. By connecting systems as well as building professionals, Johnson Controls hopes to unearth a stockpile of efficiency opportunities.

I anticipate one of the key areas of interest in the near term will be the Continuous Diagnostics Advisor. Even efficiently-designed buildings have a tendency to drift from their initial design parameters, watering down the payback for efficiency measures and compromising occupant comfort. The Continuous Diagnostics Advisor essentially enables continuous commissioning by giving building managers real-time insight into building performance and allowing them to prevent small issues from becoming big ones. Over time, though, the Panoptix platform will be used in many different ways, connecting building equipment and data to the building professionals who can act on efficiency opportunities.

by Andrew Burger

UK telecoms and IT services provider Colt is well on its way toward building the world's first zero-emissions data center, in all of four months. Being built for data center developer Verne Global, the plant will be built on a former NATO base in Keflavik, Iceland, where geothermal and hydroelectric power will supply all the electricity needed to power the 500-square meter data center's servers and ambient cold air used to cool them.

Colt has manufactured the data center's 37 modules in the UK and will begin shipping them to Verne Global's data center campus in Keflavik in early October, according to a press release.

Sitting atop part of the Atlantic Ocean's Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Iceland is the only country in the world that generates all its electrical power from clean, renewable sources - geothermal and hydropower. Its geographic location affords the country with access to plentiful geothermal and hydropower resources, as well as a cold climate that make it an ideal location for data centers. Its remote location is a downside, but undersea cables provide telecoms links between the island nation and the European and North American continents.

The Verne Global data center project is indicative of the drive on the part of the global IT and data center industry to reduce the intensity of its electricity use and minimize the environmental impact of its operations.

"This is a very interesting project and shows how the industry is transforming," commented Chris Ingle, an associate vice president at IDC. "Verne Global's Iceland location and dual source renewable energy provides a combination of sustainability and cost visibility. Colt's approach to data center build provides a fast and flexible way of fitting out the space. The ability to provide a traditional data center more efficiently than is currently the case provides a strong alternative in the market."

Added Verne Global CEO Jeff Monroe, ""Partnering with Colt enables us to have a purpose-built facility that will be in operation before the end of 2011, supporting our mission of delivering the world's first dual-sourced renewably powered data center. We see a strong demand in the co-location market and we required a partner who could provide highly resilient, flexible data center space, configured to our specific technical requirements."

Colt's modular manufacturing approach to data center construction afforded Verne Global the ability to streamline the manufacturing process and assure its quality, as well as offering the potential to quickly scale-up and increase the data center's capacity.

Through its data center division, Colt owns and operates 19 data centers across Europe and manages more than 21,000-square meters of data center space. The company also operates a 35,000-kilometer (~22,000-mile) that stretches through 39 major European cities with direct fiber connections to 18,000 buildings and 19 Colt data centers.

Verne Global's data center campus in Keflavik, Iceland offers co-location and bespoke data center options to customers whose electrical power needs range from multiple kilowatts to multiple megawatts. Geothermal and hydroelectric power provide clean, renewable power for all its operations, enabling customers to lower the environmental impact and carbon footprint of their operations. Multiple high-speed cables provide connections to Europe and the US.

Photo by Ben Lakey/flickr/Creative Commons

by Beth Buczynski

There are lots of ways to give and get quality used stuff for free. Craig's List. Local Thrift Stores. Freecycle.org. A new effort seeks to combine these efforts with millions of Facebook users to create a freecycling powerhouse.

For those that might be unfamiliar: Freecycling is a movement to help reduce the flow of waste to landfills by encouraging neighbors to give unwanted but reusable household items to each other instead of throwing them away.

Oodle, a marketplace app that's already in place on Facebook, recently launched FreeCircles, where users can offer items to each other, search among available items, or request something specific. Basically, the application acts like a hyperlocal Craig's List that's accessible from within Facebook.

"Finding a way to reuse items you no longer need, before you start thinking about disposal, is always an environmentally sound choice," said Barry Monheit, CEO of Earth911.com, a recycling directory that was one ofOodle's beta test partner at the start of FreeCircles. "Before you throw something away, you should take a minute to post it to your local FreeCircle to let your neighbors know it's available."

Rather than trying to replace existing sharing networks, Oodle's FreeCircles app provides tools to assist the efforts of moderators on existing Freecycle, ReUseIt, FullCircles, Freegle, and other freecycling groups on Yahoo! Groups.

Moderators can now grow their membership using the new "Promote My Group" feature on Marketplace. This functionality publicizes the group's listings to local Marketplace users, customers of Recology, and users of Earth911's directory. Promote My Group is free and takes just a few minutes to set up. To find out more about Promote My Group, go to blog.oodle.com/promote-my-group.

Oodle is initially launching FreeCircles in the San Francisco Bay Area - including in Palo Alto, Burlingame, and Mountain View. But the app will soon be expanding the program to include other cities across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. To find your local FreeCircle on Marketplace go to facebook.oodle.com/freecircles.

by Andrew Meggison

To commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the Toyota Prius, Parlee Cycles has teamed up with Toyota to create a bicycle based on the Prius design. A fun project indeed, and one that does celebrate green fuel alternatives. But what really sets this bike apart is the use of a special neuron helmet created by DeepLocal that allows the rider of the Prius bike to shift gears with his or her mind.

DeepLocal has made some neat stuff in recent years including a smart phone app to monitor rider attributes such as heart rate and speed. The data captured from this app is then integrated into the bike itself so that the bike can be programmed to behave intelligently in the future by remembering the rider's behavior on established routes. How the smart phone app will be implemented into the neuron helmet has yet to be releases, but with cutting edge technology like this working with Toyota the sky is the limit.

As for the bike itself, the bike frame is made out of carbon fiber tubing making for a lightweight, aerodynamic good flexible bike. Carbon fiber is not the greenest material out there, however Parlee made sure to use all of the scraps of carbon fiber during the frame construction for other projects.

The bike is still in development and much of the design details are being kept a secret-especially the finer details surrounding DeepLocal's neuron helmet.

Researchers are developing software that will help them better identify individual apes and elephants in their natural habitat, an innovation they say could improve tracking of species populations in the wild and provide insights into animal behavior.

A rapidly expanding universe of citizens' groups, researchers, and environmental organizations are making use of social media and smart phone applications to document changes in the natural world and to mobilize support for taking action.

Last year, the spectacle of 80 million people flocking to the faux greenery of FarmVille, a social networking game on Facebook, held particular irony for environmentalists who have ritually bemoaned low levels of public interest in biodiversity. Every traditional method and media has been tapped to penetrate this elephantine indifference, from documentaries to dire predictions. Rarely a week goes by without reports on crashing ecosystems or mass extinction, a blizzard of bad news inspiring little more than hand-wringing.

But in the spirit of joining rather than beating, conservationists have begun embracing the enemy, the very force that alienated people from nature in the first place: technology.

Social media have become the latest, hottest tools in natural history circles as scientists confront a populace that knows laptops better than landscapes. In the quest to give communities a grasp on complex ecological systems - particularly as they face decisions imposed by climate change - social networking promises to link scientists with the public, empowering naturalist armies to act on their behalf: monitoring species, observing behavioral patterns, and reporting the presence of invasives and changes in climate, vegetation, and populations.

Citizen science - natural history - has been the province of amateur enthusiasts for centuries, long before a young beetle-lover found himself in the Galapagos, flinging marine iguanas into the sea to see if they'd swim back. The popularity of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, launched in 1900, brought new rigor to backyard observations, revealing the scientific potential of simultaneously gathering thousands of data points across wide geographical areas.

But with the explosion of cell phones equipped with digital cameras and global positioning systems, citizen science has migrated to the Web, emerging as a potent force-multiplier - and watchdog - for conservation. In May, Namibia's government announced an SMS hotline for anonymous poaching tips: "Five fives for rhino." After the Fukushima nuclear plant failure, Japanese citizens skeptical of government reassurances bought their own dosimeters to map radioactive hot spots on the Web. Likewise, during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science transformed anxiety into "civic science," moving residents to chart the spill with digital cameras tied to kites and balloons.

The most astonishing results from environmental social networking lie in such crowdsourcing. In March, the Smithsonian put out an emergency call on Facebook for specialists to identify 5,000 freshly collected fish specimens from Guyana for export paperwork. Within 24 hours, ichthyologists around the world supplied partial or complete answers for almost 90 percent.

But most projects, from traditional websites to social networking services and apps, are premeditated: Cornell University's Citizen Science Central acts as a clearinghouse for over 130. Many offer training in species identification and invite the public to post targeted observations: the number of gray vs. fox squirrels (Project Squirrel), the appearance of buds in spring and other seasonal plant phases (Project BudBurst), the migratory behavior of Monarch butterflies (Monarch Watch) or hummingbirds (Operation Ruby Throat). Others organize and analyze data online from "BioBlitzes," intensive biological surveys conducted by volunteers with the guidance of specialists. Offering land managers and stakeholders spatially referenced databases on the presence or absence of protected or invasive species, these range from local exercises - a 24-hour "snapshot" of every species in Wisconsin's Beaver Creek Reserve, for example - to large-scale, long-term initiatives like the Adirondack All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory.

Such efforts may seem modest. But Cornell professor Harry W. Greene, an old-fashioned field biologist and self-described "snake guy," regards these observations as "absolutely at the core of all biology." Greene points out that "for most organisms on Earth, we know almost nothing." In years past, he often received frustrating reports of snake sightings from a public uncertain about key details - length, color, markings. Now, people send a digital image. "I write them right back," he says, "and tell them whether the roadkill in their driveway is a Massasauga rattlesnake or a northern milk snake." He describes the outpouring of data from citizens as "revolutionary," not only for science but for amateurs: "When you make an observation," he says, "you put yourself into the life of the organism. You care more." With enough anecdotal reports and photos, meaningful statistical samples can emerge.

Greene and a former graduate student developed a prototype for "NatureWorm," a social networking site designed to kindle interest in natural history on a wide scale. Investment lagged, but the niche has been filled by other opportunistic organisms, such as iNaturalist.org, an online community created by students at University of California, Berkeley's School of Information where users can upload photos and hobnob about sightings. On a recent visit, "RussianNaturalistBrazil" had just posted an arresting image of Gongora meneziana, a fleshy, translucent red-spotted orchid found in Brazil's Atlantic forest; Google maps pinpointed his location north of Salvador. Elsewhere on the site, a debate had broken out on the identification of a type of Indian paintbrush in California's Wildcat Canyon.

Project Noah is a more commercial version of an environmental community, led by telecom entrepreneur Yasser Ansari, who grew up in southern California and developed a passion for poison dart frogs as a child. After studying molecular biology and bioinformatics at University of California, San Diego, Ansari collaborated on Noah ("Networked Organisms and Habitats") with fellow students at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Launched in February 2010, it is now available as an app, downloaded to over 100,000 smartphones. So far, participants have uploaded over 60,000 "spottings." Recent caches feature everything from the inevitable white-tailed deer and common garden flowers ("rose," "lantana") to images of a red-eyed tree frog, an Arctic fox, a Plains zebra rolling in dirt, a griffon vulture in flight, and mating common Indian toads.

Contributors to Noah plot sightings on a worldwide map, earn patches (reminiscent of the Boy Scouts'), and join "Missions" - the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Impact - to delve deeper into scientific projects. The National Geographic Society recently provided investment for new software, reposting on Facebook Noah's "Spotting of the Week" - including a spectacular giraffe-necked weevil from Madagascar - for its 6.6 million fans.

For all the emphasis on documentation, Ansari's view of his social network has evolved. He sees it primarily as a motivational tool, part of the "mass amateurization of everything." While his original vision was to collect data, he now suggests that Noah is "more effective at getting people excited. We're trying to create a powerful gateway drug. If you use Project Noah and then move on to hard-core science, that's a huge win. The data is secondary."

Not necessarily. Project Squirrel, which has expanded countrywide from its origins in Chicago, is keeping watch on both its target species and human observers. "We're correlating what people tell us about habitat to what the squirrels are telling us," director Steve Sullivan says, predicting that the project may document the accuracy of citizen science and its role in stimulating passion for nature.

Project BudBurst, sponsored by NEON, the National Ecological Observatory Network, has registered nearly 12,000 volunteer observers since 2007. Participants have uploaded tens of thousands of observations on their chosen plants' first leaf, first flower, first pollen, and other phenological phases (lilac is among the most popular), yielding datasets that have allowed scientists to extend a 50-year botanical study of Cook County, Illinois. Comparing historical data with three years of BudBurst observations has revealed that, as temperatures rise, forsythia is blooming 24 days earlier, black locust 19 days earlier, and red maple 14.

Both Squirrel and BudBurst are popular in classrooms, but lone individuals are also prolific - one Waco, Texas plant-watcher has been monitoring more than 25 species since BudBurst's inception, including Texas red oak, Texas bluebonnet, spiderwort, and pink ladies.

Perhaps the most intriguing capability of social media involves something that goes deeper than data. The University of Virginia's Chesapeake Bay Game is an interactive computer simulation with the power to change minds. Beginning in 2000, it plays out over a 20-year horizon, allowing teams to take on the roles and responsibilities of oystermen, crabbers, crop and dairy farmers, real-estate developers, and policy-makers, everyone with an impact on one of the world's most endangered watersheds. As teams make decisions based on economic and regulatory restrictions, determining how much land to cultivate or how many crabs to trap, they watch the real-time, long-term consequences of their choices playing out. Crucially, "the game is politically neutral," says David E. Smith, professor in U. Va.'s Department of Environmental Sciences.

On Earth Day this year, teams from seven Chesapeake Bay-area universities played, each representing a major basin - York River, James River, the Eastern Shore, etc. It was a sobering experience. At the end, a College of William and Mary biology professor acknowledged that despite players' best efforts, "the quality of the bay went down."

The game is impressively accurate: Its recent iteration encompasses tens of thousands of data points, and IBM has selected it for the World Community Grid program, harnessing over a million volunteers' computers to crunch numbers. Philippe Cousteau, grandson of the oceanographer, is partnering with the university to adapt it for other ecosystems, from Australia to Arizona. He foresees a day when younger students can input real data to model their backyards and lobby their parents - "Hey, mom and dad, let's not use fertilizer on the lawn."

Today's social media may indeed spark a rebirth of natural history, but none have yet moved climate change or biodiversity loss forward very far forward on the political agenda. There are tremors: In 2009, 350.org, agitating for action on climate change, used social media to organize more than 5,000 events in some 180 countries, in what CNN called "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history." Last year, 350.org mobilized tens of thousands of people against offshore oil drilling, holding hands across 900 beaches. Avaaz, the Web-based social justice movement, has inspired more than a million to sign a petition to protect bee populations by banning neonicotinoid pesticides in the U.S. and EU.

Meanwhile, the environment waits for a software wunderkind to find the social formula that may lure a fickle public to fall in love with the real world, not a fake one.

In a bold move, South Korea's ministry of education recently announced plans to remove printed textbooks from Korea's schools by the year 2015. Called "Smart Education", the plan calls for the creation of a dedicated cloud network - which will host digital copies of the students' required reading and lessons - that can be accessed through "any" Internet-connected device, from low-power netbooks to tablets to (presumably) Android-powered washing machines, which will be provided to students' families if they are unable to afford them (the netbooks, not the appliances).

The ministry's office also has plans for online classes which will allow students who are ill or otherwise unable to attend school physically to"keep up" with their classmates, and also make adult and remedial education more easily accessible.

In addition to being a fantastic move from a conservationist standpoint (Seriously, how many millions of pounds of wood and paper are turned into textbooks every year? How many gallons of gas go into transporting those heavy books every year? I bet it's a lot!), Korea's plan will also provide a significant boost to the country's private IT sector, requiring thousands of employee contractors to wire up schools, homes, and public spaces in preparation for the 2015 cut-off.

The head of the ministry believes these moves will help keep Korea's students (who already scored "on top" in terms of internet and computer "literacy" compared to students sampled from 19 countries) ahead of the curve. "That's why Korean students, who are already fully prepared for digital society, need a paradigm shift in education," he said to the Jakarta Globe, while also expressing his belief that the plan to digitize schools will actually save his government money over the long term (!).

Let's hope the multi-level wisdom being employed here by South Korea gets "picked up" by other countries in the near future - the trees, at least, will be thrilled!

Using 70 satellite images taken between 2005 and 2008, scientists have developed a digital map of Britain that shows in remarkable detail the mosaic of vegetation and land-cover types that makes up the British landscape.

"At a time when our land surface is under increasing pressure, reliable information on land cover is essential,"says Dr Dan Morton of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), who led the UK Land Cover Map (LCM) project. "The demands that we place on our land are often conflicting and need to be balanced to maintain and enhance our quality of life. To address these issues and plan for the future, we need to know what we have on our land surface and where it is. The new map provides that information."

The map shows the distribution of different sorts of habitats throughout Britain down to an amazing resolution of only 25 metres.

The scientists analysed the satellite photos that they had gathered by computer and then used the colours they found to determine what sort of vegetation was growing in that particular area. Each area was assigned to a land cover type based on existing Biodiversity Action Plan habitat categories.

The results showed that the main categories of land use in Britain are 'Arable and horticulture' and 'improved grassland' which both take up a quarter of the UK's land area. 'Semi-natural grassland' takes up 13 percent; 'mountain, heath and bog' accounts for another 16 per cent. 'Urban areas', 'coniferous woodland', 'broadleaved woodland' each make up a further 6 percent, while 'coastal' and 'freshwater' habitats account for the remaining percentages.