Greenpeace, the organization with noble goals but a prickly way of going about things, has asked Facebook to stop using coal at its new data center in Oregon. Given Greenpeace’s history (seen here annoying Deutsche Bank), I should expect some attention-seeking prank if Facebook doesn’t comply. Watch out, Zuckerberg.

Greenpeace’s main problem with Facebook is that its new datacenter will run on “dirty coal-fired electricity.” Being that burning coal throws a tremendous amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, you can imagine how much gunk a Facebook data center would generate.

And given that Facebook, is, shall we say, influential, any decision to back away from coal could serve as a lesson or example to other companies out there. A sort of, “Well, if Facebook doesn’t need coal, then maybe we don’t either.”

Some 500,000 people have signed Greenpeace’s petition asking Facebook to reconsider its stance here.

Greenpeace: getting heat the hard way.