For the next week, your friends’ profile pictures might look a little different on Facebook. A little greener. Don’t worry, they’re not sick – they’re just concerned. They’ve joined Greenpeace’s campaign to get Facebook to use 100% renewable energy and you should too.
Starting tomorrow, Facebook protesters will be changing their profiles to icons such as the one below in order to urge the social networking site to go green.
Why now? Because Facebook recently announced that it will be building a massive data center in Oregon in order to serve the millions of people currently using the site. Facebook proudly noted that the center will be full of energy efficient computers… but the company plans to run the site on coal-generated electricity. (So what’s the point, right?)
Since Facebook is one of the largest (and therefore one of the most energy guzzling) social networking sites in the world, having them go sustainable would make a big impact.
The campaign is calling for Facebook to:
Commit to stop using polluting coal power.
Use its purchasing power to choose only clean, renewable sources of electricity.
Advocate for strong climate and energy policy changes at the local, national and international level to ensure that as the IT industry’s energy demand increases, so does the supply of renewable energy.
Share this information publicly on its website so its millions of users know the company is a climate leader.
Want to get involved? First of all, you can join the official protest group on Facebook (and join over 140,000 current members). Then, get a whole bunch of friends to join the group as well. Want to take it even further? Change your profile picture for a week (to an image such as the one on the right) starting tomorrow – March 12th.
Read more about other forms of green activism::
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Author: Karen Chernick
Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
I think if people really care, they should offset themselves. But of course businesses will hurt if more consumers will pressure them and make demands to go neutral. The problem is Facebook is free. Can we make those demands on a service we are not paying for?