I’ve recently been emailing with a fellow named Jacob who is one of the founders of GreenAnswers.com. Here is what he told me about the site:

GreenAnswers.com is a new social question and answer site dedicated to environmental issues.

The impetus for GreenAnswers was the realization that a lack of widespread knowledge about environmental issues is one of the greatest hurdles to positive action.

We created GreenAnswers to provide a forum where people could debate and discuss these important issues, thereby helping to educate and inform the public about the environment. Since we are a user-generated site, the quality of the answers depends on getting smart and passionate people to participate.

So I’ve been exploring the site. It was easy to register, and I do always like it when I can put up a link to this site. I saw a number of questions that I could answer, and did answer one.

Questions at GreenAnswers.com

The homepage automatically shows the questions most recently asked. Here were the first ones when I was there:

  • Is the Smithsonian the largest museum in the world?
  • Are the old buildings of the Mayan and Aztec empires protected?
  • How has economic recession helped the environment?
  • What are bear gallbladders used for on the black market?
  • What are the biggest setbacks to renewable energy right now?
  • re there any cities that require scooters to be electric?
  • Which state is moving the fastest to develop renewable energy sources?
  • Is the west coast of America in danger of Tsunami’s?
A few of these could be answered quickly in Google… as a former librarian, I am often amazed at the the questions people email me (related to this site and to my other sites) when they could find the answer in Google in no time!
But several of these are really interesting and call for reflection. At the time I was there, all of these questions had been posted within the previous 20 minutes or so and none had been answered yet.

Answers at GreenAnswers.com

The site has three tabs across the top: Recent Questions,  Recently Answered, and Unanswered. I went over to Recently Answered, and read a bunch. Here were some of the answered questions:
  • What is reverse graffiti?
  • What is the most efficient way to bring water to a boil?
  • Is storm-water already polluted by the time it hits the ground, or does it pick up pollutants in the ground?
  • What pollutants do trains produce?
I thought the answers were excellent. Some of them had citations to other websites.

Members

The last thing I did was to check out the Members list, where you can see top members in terms of participation, along with their bios. Some very interesting and committed people are taking part.
Will I be back? You bet. Will I become very active there? Probably not, as I have too much on my hands already, but I love knowing the site is there. Every bit we can do helps.
Do go take a look at GreenAnswers.com!