7 iPhone Apps That Help Save the Planet (LiveScience.com)

June 27, 2010 by Jim Pad
Filed under Apple Computer News

Plenty of iPhone apps can give you tips on how to lead an eco-friendly
lifestyle, but only a few help you take concrete steps toward that
goal. From eating green to saving stranded wildlife, here are seven
apps to help you save the world.

Report Oiled Wildlife

Wildlife rescuers are out in force along the Gulf Coast, trying to
save animals stranded by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But these
teams aren’t big enough to comb every inch of beach from Florida to
Louisiana.

That’s where “MoGO” comes in. Researchers at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst developed this free app (the name stands for
Mobile Gulf Observatory) in hopes of widening the wildlife rescue
network. Users simply snap a photo of oiled wildlife, which is then
pinpointed by the iPhone’s built-in GPS. Once the photo is uploaded, the
app automatically connects you to a Wildlife Hotline to report what
you’ve seen.

Besides helping rescue animals in the short term, “MoGO” users are
building a database that will help rehabilitate the Gulf long after the
spill ends, according to a statement by Andy Danylchuk, a UMass
Amherst fisheries ecologist and one of the app’s developers.

“The MoGO public database will help guide restoration efforts of
vital coastal and marine habitats, and be used by scientists world-wide
to assess the ecological
impacts of the spill on the Gulf,” Danylchuck said.

Track the Gulf oil spill

Want to find out if your favorite beach has been oiled, or report
tarballs in the water near you? The “Gulf Oil Spill Reporter” makes
tracking the progress of the BP
Deepwater Horizon oil spill simple. This free app, put out by the
non-profit environmental monitoring organization SkyTruth, lets you
browse reports of oil sightings, distressed wildlife and oily odors in
the air. Users can upload photos and send their own reports, which
remain archived at oilspill.skytruth.org.
The app even lets you tag your own location and sends an email if the
oil sheen creeps within about 12 miles (20 kilometers) of you.

Stop overfishing

The Monterey Bay Aquarium‘s “Seafood Watch” app takes the guesswork
out of ordering fish. From abalone to yellowtail, the app ranks seafood
for sustainability and health. (For the record, abalone gets a “Best
Choice” rating for sustainable farming, while Yellowtail gets a bright
red “Avoid.”)

The app also lists the “good alternatives” between “Best Choice” and
“Avoid,” and allows you to choose your region so you know you’re
getting the right data for your area. Each entry explains why the
rating was given, making this free app not only useful, but educational
as well.

Plant a Tree

Dropping $0.99 on the “A Real Tree” app will net you a virtual tree
complete with animated flowers and fluttering birds. But the true value
is in the real world: For every purchase of “A Real Tree,” the United
Nations-endorsed charity’s partners plant one tree in a deforested
tropical country. So far, according to the app Web site, almost 2,000
trees have been planted in Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama,
Cameroon, Ethiopia, Burundi, Senegal, Zambia, India, Philippines, and
Haiti.

Fight Global Warming

Ever wanted to try hypermiling, the driving style that aims to lower
gas consumption to a bare minimum? Well, there’s an app for that.
“GreenMeter” uses the accelerometers in the iPhone and iPod touch to
evaluate your driving efficiency. It calculates your vehicle’s fuel
usage, cost and carbon emissions in real time, while you’re on the road.

The app’s developers estimate that in the two years since its
release, the $5.99 app may have saved 2 million gallons of gas and kept
47,000 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And there’s the
added bonus that you could hypermile your way to fewer
fill-ups, saving money while you save the planet.

Conserve Energy

Call it hypermiling for your house. The $0.99 app “MeterReadings”
lets you track your gas, electricity and water consumption and costs.
Users enter their meter readings and get back a wealth of data and
graphs on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly usage. The app
will even extrapolate your next bill, giving you the thrill of trying to
come in underneath the estimate.

Commute Smarter

For urban commuters, hybrid electric bikes that save energy from
braking for use on tough uphill stretches aren’t a new idea. But the
not-yet-released “Copenhagen Wheel Project” app aims to take hybrid
e-bikes one step further.

The Copenhagen wheel is a “smart” bike wheel that converts a regular
bike into an e-bike. Using a Bluetooth device, the wheel connects to a
smartphone app and uploads information on how hard you’re peddling,
what the road and traffic conditions are like, and even how much carbon
monoxide is in the air. The app also controls how much assistance in
peddling the wheel gives. Although production of the wheel isn’t set
until the end of this year, the mayor of Copenhagen has already ordered
a small fleet for city workers.

The hope, according to the system’s developers at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, is that users will share their data via social
networking to help other cyclists pick commuting routes. The
resulting data maps could help urban
planners build greener cities.

Original Story: 7 iPhone Apps That Help Save the Planet

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