Joseph Okanga/Reuters

As I wrote over the weekend, the transition to a new year has provided a valuable moment to review goals for this blog and, more generally, assess prospects that the human condition (including the quality of our relationship with our environment) will be improved by the planet’s fast-spreading web of communication tools. I looked at blogging on Dec. 30.

Now here’s my broader take on what I’ve begun calling the “knowosphere” — a word intentionally echoing the more allegorical “noosphere,” the “planet of the mind” of Vladimir Vernadsky and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Whatever term you use, it’s clear that the world is quickly being knitted by new ways to share observations and shape ideas that are bound to have profound impacts on the quality of the human journey. (“Knowosphere” has also been used by Larry Kilham, an entrepreneur and inventor who has been writing about how to remain innovative in the age of Google.)

As recently as a year ago, I was thinking that something new had to be built — a kind of online hub and toolkit linking like-minded individuals, schools, businesses, museums and other institutions focused on collaborative learning and experimentation.

It’d include a Match.com-style portal for connecting, say, a harried teacher seeking an explanatory video on geo-engineering with student filmmakers eager to test their chops. It would help connect students from communities in different parts of the world pondering similar issues — like coastal changes from rising sea levels.

The reality is that the tools and initiatives are already out there. See this fun geo-engineering video on YouTube.

And the connections are being made. See the educational work on coasts and climate undertaken by the British group Atlantic Rising.

Some new technology and organization is surely helpful. Read more…