GreenKnow responds simply to the worldwide need for information in support of survival. Given the circumstance, understanding our place in the environment—that is, the Biogeosphere—allows us to manage many challenges and opportunities that face individuals as well as society.

Old and newly emerging disease; water, food and fiber production, distribution and shortage; chemical contamination and exposure—each embodies distinct environmental linkages that can be understood better with access to factual, science-based information, knowledge and accumulated wisdom.

For example, paint a scenario with a human population of 6.4 billion—with nearly 854 million men, women and children chronically hungry—where, in all, over 2 billion people lack food security—we have a problem. Identifying, gathering, assessing and judging, and communicating factual and reliable environmental and human health information is recognized as critical to management of this problem.

An exemplary set of environmental and human health information resources is embodied in the rapidly growing Earth Portal (in particular, its open access, peer-reviewed Encyclopedia of Earth).

Readers are invited—if fact, encouraged—to use GreenKnow to access these resources; and to share their experiences in identifying and using defensible, scientific information in support of their personal and environmental health circumstances.

©Sidney Draggan 2008