How you can help save the world....sort of, no really.

Ages ago I posted a teaser alluding to a post about a cool project through which bloggers (and anyone else) could help further the sum total of humanity's works (I can't recall my exact wording but it was suitably pretentious). Naturally I promptly got distracted and didn't go any further with that post until my memory got jogged today.

I was referring to the Encyclopedia of Life. Imagine if you will a single website wherein one could find a page relating to any, and every, species on earth. Every species.

What a fantastic resource this could be. The first step to improving our care of nature's wonder is to recognise it and to educate about it. This could be a tool that allows everyone with access to a computer to learn the sum of our knowledge about any critter or plant in the world! But don't take my word for how awesome and important this could be, take the legendary Edward O. Wilson's and watch his TED prize accepting speech on the subject here.

But it needs to be shaped and contributed to. Opportunities to do this are starting to open up - on the EOL main page you can learn how to help or you can join the flickr group and contribute your photos. Which is what I did and which is why some of the photos over there may look familiar.

I'd really encourage each and every person reading this to consider if they have unique photos of flora or fauna to contribute. I'd also suggest people keep dropping by EOL to check in on its progress and offer any suggestions they have. We can build it.