Facebook is a financial juggernaut that claims to be committed to a clean energy future, but the discovery of a Zuckerberg-funded SuperPac promoting the world’s filthiest fossil fuels has the Internet crying foul.

We don’t feel it or see it as we’re surfing the web or clicking “Like” on cat memes, but the internet generates a lot of pollution. See, the internet lives on giant electricity-sucking servers housed in climate-controlled data centers all over the world. The bigger the website, the more servers it takes to keep it up and running.

Facebook is one of the world’s most heavily trafficked sites, so naturally, it’s got more servers than just about anyone else. In 2011, in response to Greenpeace’s popular “Unfriend Coal” campaign, the social media giant agreed to promote renewable energy, encourage major utilities to develop renewable energy generation, and develop programs that will enable users to save energy and engage their communities in clean energy decisions.

Soon, news of Facebook’s new LEED-certified, uber efficient data centers were splashed across the headlines. “Hooray,” we thought. “Facebook is doing the right thing, leading the way for the green internet of the future.”

That’s why millions of Facebook users were stunned to learn that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us SuperPAC is funding ads that promote the Keystone Pipeline, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and attacks on Obamacare.

Now, there’s nothing shocking about a billionaire supporting pro-oil, pro-Conservative rhetoric. What makes this development shocking is 1) how hard Facebook has tried to position itself as environmentally-concerned and 2) the fact that the SuperPAC  (supposedly) exists to support comprehensive immigration reform.

Apparently, the SuperPAC thought that by supporting some Republican senators’ positions on fossil fuels, they would convince those politicians to vote in favor of immigration reform—a move that could anger their right-leaning constituents. In short, FWD.us is employing the same underhanded bribery that has allowed special interests to completely corrupt our political system. Thankfully, this dark side didn’t sit well with Facebook users, the Progressive community or FWD.us’ own donor list.

FWD.us “doesn’t understand the tech industry,” said a longtime tech lobbyist who remained anonymous to Politico. “Jumping into unrelated energy issues like Keystone pipeline has tarnished the tech community’s reputation. Not only does it involve them in an issue in which they have no position, it also unnecessarily aligns them with Republicans over President Obama and the core of the Democratic Party.”

When news of FWD.us’s pro-Keystone ads first hit the internet, progressive groups lost no time in using Facebook’s own viral sharing functions to spread the word. That’s when Zuckerberg made his second big mistake.

Miffed by the backlash, Facebook decided to pull an ad by activist mobile phone company Credo that criticized FWD.us. “Facebook took the extraordinary step of rejecting our ad featuring Mark Zuckerberg’s photo along with a headline asking him to stop pushing pro-Keystone XL propaganda,” Becky Bond, Political Director of Credo told Mashable. “But the ads that truly need to be pulled are the cynical and ineffective anti-environmental political commercials that Zuckerberg and FWD.us are airing in South Carolina and Alaska.”

The move, which some viewed as self-serving censorship, prompted Credo and other groups to pull their Facebook ad campaigns, and caused some of the super PAC’s top donors to withdraw their support.

Want to help? Check out Credo’s petition asking FWD.us to stop running ads supporting dirty energy.

Image: Tar Sands Solution Network

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ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

Before there were foodies, there were hunter-gatherers.

If you were hungry around 10,000 years ago, you likely had a good sharp spear, a stone implement, or a bow and arrow to help. You moved stealthily through grassy inlets, dark forests, and rough waves, or the tall grasses of a savannah, looking for deer, rabbits, fish, elk, anything with a heartbeat. You were a scavenger, too, finding eggs and carcasses. You caught fresh seafood, and you knew what nuts and berries to pick that wouldn’t kill you. Your family had to survive off what you captured, so you had to be good at what you did.

Today, modern day eating includes two kinds of people: those who eat simply because they are hungry and those who grandstand. For the latter, it’s trendy to be aware and hopeful. Want arugula with that?

We are so caught up in our organic, pro-biotic, farm raised, grass fed, locally caught, CLA-rich meats and hydroponically-grown produce that we’ve lost sight of an important aspect of our diet – the courage it takes to know where it comes from. We’re not going to see Portland hipsters in oxfords gutting deer or upper middle class types in North Face jackets slitting a grassfed cow’s throat. We’re not going to see trendy, knee-booted girls in leggings pulling feathers out of chickens for their new, cute hair extension, then eating the meat, nor are we going to see the fedora-topped, sullen-faced musician spear-fishing his wild salmon from the Pacific. (Mark Zuckerberg may be more authentic than any hipster could ever hope to be.)

We are a culture of hypocrites. We shun the real hunter, wrapped in camouflage and Hunter’s Orange. We refuse to meet eye-to-eye the seasoned fisherman at the end of the pier – the one who will gut and fine fillet.

I was at a friend’s dinner party in Brooklyn recently, where long-haired grassfed beef burgers were going to be served at the lively hour of 11:30 p.m. The group’s conversation centered around the hairy cow whom we were to eat momentarily, as we grazed on organic, local cheeses and freshly baked artisanal bread and drank urban winery wine. All of it lovely, to be sure.

Later, biting into the bloody burger, I found myself wanting to be anywhere but with my mouth on the flesh of a once-hairy beast that had roamed a beautiful farm in upstate New York. I ate around the edges, avoiding the cool middle. Within moments of putting down the rare part, it had been snatched by not-so-polite fingers and horrified faces. I wasn’t meaning to be wasteful.

Who was the conscious consumer, and who wasn’t? To be graceless consumers of bespoke foods, as if each bite brings us closer to mindfulness. Some of us eat to survive: Cheez-its and Hamburger Helper. Some of us eat to feel whole: farmers’ market kale and quinoa. In the latter case, we should also ask ourselves if we are doing this to be more conscious, or simply to be more cool.

Between the Lines, is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country.

Image: Erik Brett

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ColumnThe founder of Facebook vows to eat what he kills. Like?

Mark Zuckerberg has just announced his intention to only eat “that which he kills with his own bare hands.” It’s hard to discount any idea that springs from the mind of the guy who dreamed up Facebook while he was still a teenager. But I’m having trouble deciding if this slay-your-own-entree idea is The Next Big Thing, or if it’s merely evidence that earning a billion dollars in your early twenties can turn you into a major head case.

Not that I have a problem with people wanting to kill their dinner – I happen to be a committed carnivore, so the fact is, someone’s killing my dinner. It would be the height of prissy hypocrisy for me to look down on the people who slaughter the source of my turkey burger, while I stay clear of the carnage, keeping my hands (if not my karma), perfectly clean and pure. So while I’m not opposed to killing animals for food, I’m way too squeamish to do it myself.

Still, there’s so much hypocrisy when it comes to eating meat, and I think Zuckerberg should be commended for at least opening up the dialogue. My daughter prefers not to eat anything with a face, but she will make a completely unreasonable exception for pepperoni (although pepperoni really doesn’t have a face, coming as it does from assorted scraps of random beasts), even if it is the particle board of the meat world. Other people will eat any form of meat, while taking a moral stand against fois gras, because they think it’s cruel to aggressively fatten the liver of a duck just to make an unctuously tasty appetizer. We are all hypocrites.

Personally, I draw the line at veal, not for any logical reason, but because knowing it comes from a baby cow makes me want to lie down and weep. If this makes me a hypocrite, so be it. I am comfortable with the unpredictable nature of my position on animals, which boils down to this: we are higher up on the food chain than pigs and chickens so it’s all right for us to eat them. But to enjoy killing animals, to do it for sport, for the unfathomable pleasure of watching a creature die, is abhorrent to me.

I am not advocating legislation against this – I think people have the right to hunt for the fun of it, it’s just something I’d prefer they not do, much like chewing tobacco or speaking loudly on cell phones. If I ruled the world people simply wouldn’t hunt for sport. They also wouldn’t wear ironic sunglasses or use the word “panties” in spoken English.

But if you’re going to eat meat then you should have the guts to admit that it comes from animals, from living, breathing creatures who frolic and feel pain, who love their moms and run joyfully through the woods on a summer day. And despite a Hemingway-esque overabundance of macho posturing, there is a certain unflinching courage in Zuckerberg’s willingness to admit to himself that his meat did not originate shrink-wrapped from the Whole Foods butcher counter.

I somehow find myself admiring this young man’s plan to kill his dinner, to look his meals squarely in the eyes before he takes them down and has them sauteed with truffles and a nice buerre blanc. And yet, I can’t help thinking about Zuckerberg’s other recent passion, the adorable, fluffy white puppy named Beast that he adopted a few short months ago. This sweet little dog, with his rich daddy and his own Facebook page, was promptly proclaimed “the luckiest dog alive,” but I’m not so sure. One can only hope that Zuckerberg doesn’t get a sudden attack of the munchies one day, while teaching little Beast to fetch.

Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Image: !!!scogle

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