6 Planet-Saving Facebook Applications
by Kristin Underwood, San Diego, CA on 08.25.08
Image source: Facebook
Oh Facebook. That 2.0 of Myspace, which allows members to catch up with frenemies from high school they never wanted to see again, as well as find embarrassing pictures about themselves the day after the all night kegger. But, with 90 million users, thats a lot of energy and potential mobilization for good that can also come out of the site. Here is a roundup of some of the green applications on Facebook that you too can use to save the planet, or at least learn about it.
1. Village Green Energy is using that potential to promote renewable energy projects in Northern California. When members add the "Green My Vino" application to their page they can give their friends "gifts." With each gift of one minute, five minutes or ten minutes, money is donated to a collective of wineries in northern California that pledge to the equivalent amount of renewable energy at the wineries.
10,000 minutes of solar and wind gifts will power the entire winery at Iron Horse Vineyards. The project has already been so successful that the first four wineries: Iron Horse Vineyards, Girard Winery, Windsor Vineyards and Windsor Sonoma are all running on renewable energy. Ultimately if the projects is successful over 1.2 mW of solar will be installed - enough to power 500 California residents for a year. The next four vineyards to get green power are: Burning Hawk, Serghesio Family Vineyards, Benziger Family Winery, and DeLoach Vineyards.
2. SunChips is donating money to green Greensburg, Kansas, which was destroyed by a tornado last year. For every person that adds the SunChips widget on their page, Sunchips will donate $1 towards their goal of $50,000 to be used to re-plant trees. Almost all of the trees in Greensburg were killed during the tornado. *NOTE: For purposes of transparency, SunChips is an advertiser on Planetgreen
3. Green My RIde allows users to check off all of the green things they do and compete with other "green-heads" (their word, not mine) to see who is uber-green. Green My Ride, by Green Home is even giving away Renewable Energy Credits for members that score highest.
4. I am Green allows members to collect "leaves" for each of their green activities and also give friends green gifts. No prizes are given away, other than the sheer satisfaction of knowing green list is longer than everyone else. ahem.
5. TheG-Quiz, sponsored by Planet Green, lets members challenge each other to daily green quizzes to find out who is the ultimate Green God/Goddess/Geek/Guru or any other "G" word you can think of.
6. (lil) Green Patch looks a little bit like a game of strawberry shortcake but actually works to save the rainforest. Members get a, well, little green rectangle on their facebook page that they can decorate with strawberry-shortcake looking people, mushrooms and flowers, which actually goes to save the rainforest. Thus far, over 29,259,567 sq ft of rainforest have been saved.
Giving "gifts" on Treehugger is free to the user, takes seconds and brightens someone's day to know they are loved, why not help the planet at the same time?
More on Green Facebook
Greensburg Needs Your Help
Carpool With Facebook
Actics.com: The "Ethical" Facebook
GoLoco Hits Facebook
Life Goggles Hosts Carnival of the Green
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Yes I have a facebook account, but I don't live there either, so I don't know everything on FB. That being said, there are other apps available, or at least the one I have.
It's called Greenbook. Basically by signing up you can help offset the CO2 created by the energy used for the FB servers. I found it to be quite appropriate.
I think people forget, despite all of their greeness, the INTERNET uses a lot of energy too just to exist.
http://apps.facebook.com/greenbook/about.php?how
My major complaint with these applications ( and (lil) Green patch inparticular) is that they do relatively little. For instance 10 invites using Green Patch will save 1 sq ft of rain forest. This is nearly meaningless. Compare the time lost by using the application and think about how much could have been saved if someone was using that time to actually do something to help.
The amount of carbon credits involved with these applications are so few that donating a few dollars would be much more efficient.
The problem I have with things like this... especially green my ride, is that they give you credit for owning things.... i don't own a car, so i can't have a green ride?!?!? how does THAT work? I think these should focus on what people DON'T use, not what they do.
I have to agree with a lot that was said up there.
Also - I remember I removed one app from my facebook because I got absolutely no credit for using non-toxic cleaners, or for being able to turn my heat off for a good portion of the cold months (I'm in Dallas) because I have floor-to-ceiling south facing windows and I use the sun to warm my loft. I think that one was also very brand-oriented and that was off-putting.
Oh boy! Renewable energy credits! I can hardly contain myself!
Are they even real?
Conservation International also has a mega-cool Facebook app.
http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=7242720837&ref=s
It has newsfeeds, species alerts, quizzes, quirky gifts, carbon offsets, and other ways to get involved. Not a lot of hype, just a way to get good information on conservation issues.