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Maybe Facebook felt trumped by the acquisition of Wildfire by Google, so it kicked it up a notch by revealing its carbon footprint:

According to a Guardian (UK) piece:

"Facebook's annual emissions were 285,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2011, compared with Google's 1.5m tons in 2010."

It wants to be transparent about its energy goals and targets (even Greenpeace thought that was a marvelous idea). It revealed its mix of sources currently too:
-- 27%, coal power, with the rest coming from renewable sources
-- 23%, renewable sources
-- 17%, gas (17%),
-- 13% nuclear
-- 20% uncategorized (maybe that's Zuckerberg powering the servers while exercising on his stationary bike)

Let's see what Google answers back with.

Interesting propaganda move. Appealing to the green mentality is so huge these days (although I wish more companies would make an effort towards it).

Could this difference in annual emissions be due to the fact that Google operates about 70 offices worldwide (http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/locations/) in comparison to what I'm assuming is a lower number of Facebook servers? Google offers such a huge variety of services that I'm sure that proportionally the numbers aren't quite as skewed.

Eh just more propaganda to try to get the warm-fuzzies for Facebook to combat the "I hate Mark Zuckerberg-privacy invasion-new timeline of Facebook". lol

Yes, Brian. I had the exact same thought -- comparing the entire Google universe (Googleverse, as I like to call it) of services and Facebook seems unfair. That's like me saying I leave less of a carbon footprint than the entire cast of Entourage.

I’m glad to see they are talking about this. Even if the cynics are right and it’s greenwashing, it shows that people are concerned.

It was timed perfectly with the announcement of the flash melting of the ice shelf in Greenland.

Seriously ridiculous...

1.) The amount of data that Google processes per day - around 24PB of data per day (August 2011)

2.) The amount of data that Facebook collects every day - 15TB (March 2011)

I think that more than explains the full story.

Source

It's a cumulative thing, Renee. lol

I detest Mark Zuckerberg and invasions of privacy. Does that make me a warm fuzzie? :-)