5 ways to help save the world while you surf

Does the internet rule your world?

Being a blogger and working in an office are two common situations which might leave you face-to-face with a screen for long stretches of the day, but they sure aren’t the only ones. And in this tech-crazy age it’s likely we’re more globally and environmentally conscious than our parents and grandparents were, with our knowledge about problems like hunger, pollution and global warming being especially sharp– but if your day is spent behind a computer screen, what exactly can you do about it?

Well quite a lot actually. This is a list of websites and ideas which can help you save the world while surfing the world wide web of miscellaneous madness. Some of it you may have seen some before, some of it you may have not. Hopefuly a few people will pick up some of the leads left here, and make a positive difference to our world.

Disclaimer: This is just a list of websites which can help you make positive contributions while using the internet, I do not claim that it will make a drastic change to our planet. But it can help.

5: Free Rice

Link: FreeRice.com

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How it helps:

Donates rice to the hungry.

What you do:

The game is simple: you are shown a word alongside four possible definitions of that word, and you have to click on the correct definition before being moved on to your next word. Sounds like fun? Here is the twist: for each word you correctly define Free Rice donates twenty grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program to help feed starving people around the world. Roughly 100,000,000 grains of rice are donated each day.

Bonus points:

The algorithm behind Free Rice actually gauges your competence with words, so when you keep getting them right it will push you to answer harder and harder words. The site’s FAQ actually claims that “a team of professional lexicographers is working to add words and additional levels to the FreeRice database”. Wow.

4: Blackle

Link: Blackle.com

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How it helps:

Saves energy by using a black screen.

What you do:

You simply search the web. Sites like Blackle came about after a post on Mark Ontkush’s EcoIron blog, which asserted that because an all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts, if the world’s most-popular search engine had a black screen it would save 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, which accumulates to around 3000 Megawatt-hours a year.

Penalties:

Some online skeptics have argued that Ontkush’s estimates are either inaccurate or irrelevant, firstly because his figures were based on a very vague statement made by the US Department of Energy, and secondly because the described energy-saving would only occur with CRT monitors, and not with a more commonplace LCD monitor. Can it help save the world? You decide.

3: Sust-It

Link: Sust-It.net

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How it helps:

Ranks computer models by their CO₂ emissions

What you do:

You find an environmentally-friendly computer to surf the web with. Sust-It is a website offering simple advice to consumers on how much energy is emitted by electrical products at home or at work, by ranking product models by their kgCO₂ emissions and energy-cost per year. It is a useful place to find a computer which will help you save energy.

Bonus Points / Penalties:

While it should be pointed out that hardly anyone could afford to kit themselves out with all low-energy appliances, Sust-It is still a useful tool for buyers to compare products by their friendliness to the environment, and could also serve to put pressure on manufacturers to make their products more energy-efficient.

2: Charitable Search Engines

Link: EveryClick
Link: Aidgle
Link: Clickscount

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How it helps:

Gives money to charity.

What you do:

Like Blackle, you just search the web. Charitable Search Engines have sprung up all over the web lately, and usually consist of a front page search box powered by a major engine like Google or Ask, which donates some or all of advertising revenues to a good cause. One example is Aidgle.com which was set up in the aftermath of last year’s earthquake in Peru, and as of mid-November in 2007 had raised over three-thousand dollars for those affected by the quake

Bonus Points:

A charitable search engine is easy and quick to set up, and could be especially useful during a major crises (see the example of Aidgle above).

1: The Hunger Site

Link: TheHungerSite.com

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How it helps:

By donating food to charities that feed the hungry.

What you do:

You click on a yellow box on the screen, once per day. The Hunger Site is possibly the largest and best example of an online charity which is user-generated, and since it launched in 1999 it has given over three hundred million cups of staple food to hungry people in over seventy-four countries. The food donations are powered by sponsors, and all you need to do is log on the site each day you can, and click the yellow box on their homepage which says: “Click here to Give - It’s Free!”. After that you are redirected to a page informing you have just “given the value of 1.1 cups of food to the hungry”.

Bonus Points:

The Hunger Site doesn’t limit itself to hunger: within the site there are buttons you can click which donate towards paying for mammogram screens for breast cancer, health-care for children, books for children’s’ literacy, rain forest protection and animal rescue! It will only take you a minute a day to contribute, so why not go for it?

I hope you liked the list and have checked out some of the links above. If you know of any other websites which can help make a change, feel free to leave us a comment below and share them with our readers.

For now here are some more links to helpful sites:

Eco Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read.

Treehugger: A great resource for environmentaly sound ideas.

GreenBackSearch: Search engine which offsets Carbon.

Action Aid: Sponsor a child.

Oxfam: Leading poverty charity.
CharityChoice: UK Charity Directory

Books to inspire change:

The Eco-Design Handbook: A Complete Sourcebook for the Home and Office

Carbon Strategies: How Leading Companies Are Reducing Their Climate Change Footprint

Small Eco Houses

Westernizing the Third World: Eurocentricity of Economic Development Theories

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

Planet earth photo credit: nickyee.com

Posted in Culture

Tags: Environment, green, Internet, Spotted

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4 Comments

• 02.17.08 By Robert:

  Thanks for this great article, I have the feeling more and more people are increasingly becoming environmentally conscious. I personally find Treehugger a great resource, and I’d encourage everyone to visit it.

  The search engine I use every day is called Lifegle. Like Blackle, Lifegle saves energy by displaying search results on a dark blue background.

• 02.19.08 By Martin Skivington:

  Hey Robert, I’m glad you like the article. I agree that more people are becoming environmentally conscious, and resources like Treehugger can only help.

  Also thanks for sharing the Lifegle link, not only does it save energy, it looks awesome too (:

• 03.04.08 By Nicki:

  Thanks for making this website it’s awesome. I thought I might add a few other charity website I like to your list.
  1.http://solvepoverty.com/ : generates a donation when you click
  2.Protect 107 square feet every day at EcologyFund.com with just a few clicks
  3. 10 clicks a day can help worl at http://www.care2.com/
  4.WWF is a great website where you can adopt your favorite animal to save it’s species,send letters to your state officials promoting saving the environment.
  5. Care- which fights poverty and right now Care has a special program called the I am Powerful Workout and you can workout for a cause. Just log in the hours you workout and $5 is donated to fight global poverty.
  http://www.care.org/features/workout/index.asp

  Thanks,
  Nicki

• 04.14.08 By ashleylynne:

  care2.com has click-to-donate links that donate money to certain charities for every click that is recieved. thought someone might like to check it out.

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