Celebrated yearly on 5 June, World Environment Day (WED) is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action. WED was firstly established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.The theme for 2009 is climate change and the broader consequences of environmental change, and what societies can do in response.

Combating climate change and preserving ecosystems services that underpin our economies is an issue for everyone. Every individual’s efforts, no matter how small, can contribute to the sustainable development of our economies and communities around the world.

On this day, individuals, non-governmental organizations, community and youth groups, business, industry and the media organize activities to renew their commitments to protect and develop the environment. They organize activities such as clean-up campaigns, tree planting, colourful street rallies, green concerts, essay and photo competitions in schools, and recycling efforts.

Internet has an important effect for the announcement of these types of activities. Especially; as social networking platforms get more popular, we see different examples of “How Social Networking Can Change The World” . Individuals, communities and organizations use social networking as a fast and reliable tool to reach targeted people. The community-driven web can really make a difference.

There are easy ways of using social media to try to change the world for a good cause. One of them is publishing a  blog post on a universal topic, as i do. One another way is tweeting with a purpose. An example for tweeting with a purpose is United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) “Twitter for trees” campaign. UNEP has a platform called “UNEP and You” – an on-going social networking platform for environmental activism. UNEP has pledged to plant 100,000 trees for 100,000 followers– or one for every follower if we can achieve more than 100,000– by World Environment Day, 5 June. This effort supports the UNEP – Billion Tree Campaign’s goal to plant a total of seven billion trees- 1 for every person on the planet- by year’s end.Add your voice and tweet loudly www.twitter.com/UNEPandYou to help the environment!

We’ve seen how social media is good for business. It helps build a brand, drives traffic and awareness and builds out communities.But, what we’ve also seen is social media bringing together people to lend their time to important causes on a global level. By using the sites we live on every day-why not use all of these friends and followers to do something good? With the help from online communities this process can become even easier, and the results can be nearly instantaneous.

As social networks take more time in our lives, we’re starting to feel The Internet’s physical impacts on our daily lives. Today, the gap between the living standarts of  developed countries and undeveloped countries, continues to widen. Social networking hepls us to know about the undeveloped countries more than past. Some smart people use social bookmarking as a tool to reach the whole world to tell what people living in undeveloped countries need.

Nowadays, twitter is a very popular for social networking and also popular for social responsibility projects. This is called “Twitting For Charity”.  Twitter co-founder Biz STONE has talked about this new way for charity in his September newsletter.

First example is Mashable ‘s “The Well That Twitter Built” project. Mashable ‘s founder and CEO Pete CASHMORE told his followers about Charity:Water, an initiative to build wells in Ethiopia.

“On September 18th 2008, Mashable’s Twitter followers donated $3536 to Charity:Water, an initiative to build wells in Ethiopia. On the same day, our Twitter friend Paul Young raised a further $637 through his Twitter and Facebook accounts. And Twitter user Sarah Townsend hauled in $400 – that’s more than $4500, almost exclusively from Twitter, in a single day. With $4000 buying an entire well to supply water to 200 people for 20 years, we can truly call this the “well that Twitter built”.” says Pete CASHMORE…
The second example is Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian, a heart surgeon using his Internet marketing business to fund heart surgery for under-privileged children having “Congenital Heart Defects” in India. In August-September every year, Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian holds a 24-hour day and night blogging marathon called Tweet-a-thon Dr. Mani has founded Children Heart Foundation which hepls children to get heart surgeon. In India, a heart surgeon is not as expensive as in US. Each operation costs between 2500 – 3000 $. He’s seeking donations and making conributions from his growing Internet business.

2500 children die every day from congenital heart defects. 1 in 4 of them lives in India. With early detection and treatment, almost all of them will be completely cured.

These two examples show us the power of The Internet via Social Networking to change the world we live. Social responsiblity must be one of the results of an adequate social network. We must thank Pete CASHMORE and Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian for showing us the way to use a social network as a tool to change the world and make better.

This post is about the power of social networking (virtual communities) to change the world and dedicated to Blog Action Day .