Greenpeace

As soon as I brought out the blownup facebook page cutout at the Harvard Earth Day festival last weekend, curious students lined up to have their picture taken. Hundreds of Harvard students participated in the photo petition drive calling on Facebook to power their new datacenter in Oregon with renewable energy instead of coal.

Because Harvard is the birthplace of Facebook, Harvard students have a special connection to it. The students were excited to call on Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and former Harvard student, to make Facebook grow responsibly.

When students were told that Facebook would be relying primarily on the last remaining coal plant in Oregon and that the plant trucks in its coal from Wyoming, they found it to be absolutely outrageous. “Coal is a fuel of the past. Facebook needs to jump on board and be a leader in our transition to cleaner energy,” one Harvard student said.

This campaign is particularly exciting for young people because Facebook is something with which our age group is very familiar. We all use it. The average user checks their Facebook page many times throughout the day.  For Facebook to also use its own platform to educate its 350 million users about its switch to renewable energy and to advocate for stronger climate policy would be huge!

You too can ask Faceook to quit coal.  Join the facebook page now.