Green Options

This post is a collaboration between Max Gladwell and Mashable’s Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser. It is the second in our series of #10Ways posts being published simultaneously across as many as 300 blogs.

Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That’s one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.

Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you’d like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Write a Blog Post

Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days — whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you’re passionate about, you’re helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.

Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers. The beneficiaries included Sustainable Harvest, Kiva, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Environmental Working Group, and Water for People. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here.

You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.

2. Share Stories with Friends

Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you’ve gathered a social network.

You’ll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.

The Humane Society of the United States has returned to court in attempt to stop the sea lion cull near the Bonneville Dam in Washington and Oregon.

Hundreds of sea lions may be trapped and killed in a program aiming to increase the salmon population in the river. The animal welfare group argues that the NOAA Fisheries Service has not sufficiently explained why the sea lions are being singled out despite other predators (like humans) having a greater impact on the salmon population.

Humane Society Canada has sent a representative to the Gulf of St. Lawrence to document and broadcast the commercial killing of over 300,000 young seals beginning today.

Rebecca Aldworth, who has attended the seal hunt for 11 years in a row, has arrived in the area. She will photograph the scene and send live updates through the Humane Society website and via Twitter (@humanesociety or #sealhunt09).

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has issued an interim policy regarding dogs victimized by dog fighting. The policy recommends that dogs be evaluated on an individual basis rather than being condemned to euthanization as a group.

The HSUS was widely criticized in recent weeks for supporting a court ruling that ordered 145 pit bulls destroyed after they were confiscated from Wildside Kennels in Wilkes County North Carolina. The dogs, which included approximately 70 puppies, were euthanized earlier this month.

There are few places in the world that have not been touched in some way by the faltering global economy. A tragic side effect of this phenomenon is the increase in abandoned pets and the resulting stress it continues to place on the shelters trying to care for them.

As someone who lives in a home filled with animals it’s hard to imagine any circumstance in which I would give them up: their care is my top priority. Perhaps if circumstances became so dire that I could not afford to feed them or provide them with adequate medical care, I could see how one might have to come to such a heartbreaking decision.

In response to an advertisement from the Center for Consumer Freedom claiming that the Humane Society funds terrorists, GreenIsTheNewRed.com is offering a prize to the person who can link the the Center to terrorist activity in the fewest steps.

Environment groups settled a lawsuit in federal court today with the US Coast Guard, which agreed to abide by the Endangered Species Act which requires that shipping lanes do not put critically endangered Northern Atlantic right whales in harm’s way.

Tis’ the season to donate and if you’re so inclined there are lots of folks trying to help you do it.  Facebook has jumped into the game with an application to give Facebook Charity Gifts. Through the app, you make a donation as a gift in a friend’s name and your friend receives a nifty icon on their Facebook page. Sounds like a great proposition, right? The problem is that Facebook did not do its homework on all these nonprofits.

A quick check on Charity Navigator reveals that only seven of the twenty-one nonprofits (33%) were given 4-star ratings: American National Red Cross, One Economy Corporation, Heal the Bay, Islamic Relief, MERCY CORPS, Humane Society of The United States and United States Fund for UNICEF. One group earned 3-stars (”good”), two groups earned 2-stars (”fair”), two are hospitals (and not 501c3 charities)[CORRECTION: the hospitals are both in fact 501c3s] and seven groups were not even rated, including one group with no website [CORRECTION: LOVEFUTBOL does have a very nice website], no HQ and listed “c/o” someone who apparently lives around the corner from me. I should add that looking at the rating is not always enough.  As a reader named David pointed out in a comment to the post last week, notwithstanding its 4-star rating, UNICEF has its own questionable practices.

It has become conventional wisdom that culling deer is a necessary measure that humans must take in order to protect deer and their habitats from the effects of over-population. But new research has found that, in fact, areas with more deer actually have higher biodiversity.

The study, performed by researchers with the National Park Service and Ohio State University,  seems to support the position of many animal rights activists have held for years—deer should be left alone.

Across the world, animals are invading cities and suburbia at a magnitude unlike ever before. The reason is simple: animals are adapting and finding new places to live as their original habitats are destroyed or altered by people. But do not despair.

If you live in a city or suburban area, you can help. Directly below are three unique ways that you can use to join the effort to protect urban wildlife as well as make some positive additions to urban ecosystems at the same time. Some of these ideas you might be familiar with, and others you might not. In any case, spread the word!

At times, we consumers can feel a bit powerless in the wake of so many recalls of everything from food and medicine to toys, knowing that so little of these goods actually do get inspected, and often the inspection process fails. 2007 was a rough year in this capacity.

Last year, there were a record number of contaminated meat recalls, primarily from E. coli risks. Yet, it may surprise many people that despite its role as an inspector, the USDA does not have the legal authority to force a recall of meat and poultry product. It’s a frustrating situation. Indeed, in the wake of the record recalls, the only outcome by the USDA was to determine that a “study needed to be done on the situation.” In other words, little action by the USDA to address the situation and partial, voluntary recalls by the meat companies. Status quo.

And, then the Hallmark/Westmoreland products investigation hit the Web in the form of a video of shocking animal abuse and illegal use of downed cattle for human consumption, including school lunch programs. Actions that occurred despite twice a day visits from a USDA inspector.