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Inspired by a disheartening study (PDF) showing that children can identify far more Pokemon than local plants and animals, Phylo is an online trading card game featuring real flora and fauna around the world. Players pit them against each other while learning facts about each species. Who would win a battle between a muskox and a brown throated sloth? The muskox.

What makes Phylo especially cool is that the project is open to everyone's contributions -- cards, art, even the rules of the game itself.

I wasn't able to figure out how to actually play the game (rules are still being hashed out), but I did learn that the kakapo is a heavy, flightless New Zealand parrot with a "pleasant odour". And it can defeat a Hawaiian Bobtail Squid in battle.

Nonprofit coalitions are springing up all over in advance of  the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December, when world leaders will meet to make important revisions to the Kyoto Protocol.

The biggest of these is tcktcktck.org, a coalition between more than two dozen major nonprofits and associations, including WWF, Oxfam and Avaaz. They're asking for an ambitious, fair, and binding treaty, and they've got some serious star power to back them up:

The Global Climate wake-up call, from Avaaz.org:

And I've been working on Make Forests Count, a small but growing coalition site aimed at eliminating loopholes that allow countries to clearcut their forests while collecting Kyoto credit.

Here's our video, written and directed by Anthony Wong:

Other groups looking forward to Copenhagen:

• The David Suzuki Foundation calls the summit "the most important wake up call of this century".
• Stop Climate Chaos is a coalition of Irish nonprofits.
• and the entire UK government calls for citizens to Act on Copenhagen

Have you seen any other inspiring sites or social media regarding the Copenhagen summit?

I met Dave and his brother a few years ago through my sister-in-law, and they are great guys. Their band does mostly east coast celtic and country, but they're not well-known yet, even within Canada.

So when Dave posted this video about United Airlines wrecking his guitar, I went to share it around, only to find that the internet beat me to it.

United is on the ball.  Within 24 hours of the video's posting, they've apparently offered to make amends.

Tounge-in-cheek internet embarrassment seems to be the trick to getting real customer service.  When it worked for Adam Savage, many people wondered if AT&T only responded quickly because of Savage's fame. But the success of this video shows that with little more than creativity, anyone can force a monolithic company's hand.

If you're already carrying an iPhone on your hikes, you've got instant access to endless knowledge about the natural world in your pocket.  Impressive!  But with these applications, current and forthcoming, you can also be an active contributor to science:

1. iBird Explorer: Leave that stack of heavy guidebooks at home, and take the entire avian directory of North America out in the field. You can even play song samples. Great for Audubon's Christmas Bird Count (unless it's rainy or muddy...) or use at home for Project Feederwatch.  iBird can't identify birds by song the way Shazam identifies music without a sound-isolating microphone.  We could see this feature soon, though, thanks to...
2. Pasco's SPARK, demoed at Apple's 2009 developers conference, will turn the iPhone/iPod Touch into a basic portable labratory by connecting to a variety of sensors.  Possible applications include water and air quality analysis.
3. Photo-based species identification -- Not available yet, but exciting! CNN reports that "researchers at several universities are working on iPhone applications and computer programs that could analyze digital photos of plant leaves and automatically identify the plant's species."  This would allow non-expert botanists to help out in a Bioblitz, for example, automatically identifying (and maybe GPS tagging) each species.
4. GPS, built into the iPhone 3G via Google Maps, allows the user to more-or-less accuately record and upload their location.  Combined with other science applications, the possibilities are amazing.  Users could collaboratively create real-time maps of everything from species range to water chemistry.  As a bonus, the 3GS (2009 iPhone) includes a compass.  Kind of takes the hard work out of orienteering, doesn't it?

Granted, the iPhone is an expensive, delicate device ill-suited to outdoor classrooms.  But if you're carrying one around anyway, why not put it to work improving the world's knowledgebase?

I had the great opportunity to attend Social Tech Training in Toronto this week, a master class for nonprofit folks using the internet to create social change.  

Here are five of the big themes from the classes:

1. An organization's online communications shouldn't stand alone. 
   Whether it's your website, Facebook account, email blasts, or Twitter, online tools should be part of your organization's bigger strategy.  Online communications staff are part of everything... development, communications, senior admin, programs, you name it.
2. You don't have to spend a lot on software and websites. 
   In fact, some of the best services are free, or offer deep discounts for nonprofits.  But research solutions carefully,  Learning a new tool and integrating it into your commuincations isn't really free, when you consider staff time and opportunity cost. Check out Phillip Djwa's presentation on great tools for nonprofits.
3. Know your goals before jumping into a new tool. 
   Should your nonprofit be on Twitter?  First, consider what you want to get out of it.  Most orgs have limited time and staff to devote to online media, and we really can't be everywhere at once.  And remember that tools will come and go.  Facebook is big today, but who knows what the hot new tool will be 6 months from now?
4. Email is still the most efficient way to reach people online. 
   A good email client (like VerticalResponse or MailChimp) is worth paying for.  You'll collect valuable insight on your supporters' interests, and you'll know what works and what doesn't when it comes to getting your emails opened. 
        Bonus tip: Never send bulk email via the bcc: field in your regular email client.  ISPs may start to think you're a spammer, and you could see all of your outgoing emails delayed or blocked. 
        For more insight on effective email, see Eric Squair's presentation on the Best Email Ever (!), and Samer Rabadi's talk on great storytelling for nonprofits.
5. There's no magic rule to online success,
   said Tim Walker (a founder of Adbusters magazine).  Nonprofits have had astounding success with online campaigns without a lot of money, experience, operations or staff.  What successful nonprofits do have in common is an organizational understanding that the internet changes everything about the way we conduct campaigns and interact with supporters, and a willingness to give up some control.  

You can find detailed notes and resources from the Training here.