183 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50048638
253 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50196837
Something something Dark Side?
"A Finnish contractor working for Google failed to get the correct permits for clearing 1.5sq-mi of man made forest that was rezoned to industrial"
The actual takeaway is how desperate the media is for clicks. They don't report based on importance, the report based on attention potential (while people naturally assume it's based on importance, as that's the aire the media projects ofc)
This is the most effective altruist anti AI headline you could get out of this story.
250k trees seems like a lot from you looking out your window. From the perspective of trees we cut down every year (that we account for) it is close to a rounding error. This is a place where they take forest management seriously - and thats the only reason any one even noticed or had to get a permit.
Finland has something like 20 billion trees and plant tens of millions a year for forestry. The bloody country is nothing but trees. 250k isn't nothing but it's hardly the end of the world.
The space around the town is entirely cultivated land for tens of kms across, hundreds of times the land that they sold to Google- and that land too once had been forest and was felled by the Finns to make space for agriculture. Is anyone outraged about this?
This isn’t about trees. This is about not following the environmental regulation.
To put in contrast this is something for which a private citizen could get into a lot of hot water.
So it’s about can a large corporation act as they like or do they need to follow the laws just like everyone else.
If they had followed the law, the trees would not be an issue.
So, no thank you, these are not the data centres we need.
Here is the (much, much higher quality) original reporting that this terrible ny post writeup is based on: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2026/...
I think your “datacenter bad” comment makes you appear somewhat biased in the opposite direction that you’re complaining about. You seem not to be interested in actually learning whether any serious misconduct occurred, which is genuinely up for debate.
This issue matters to a lot of people. Tribalism doesn’t help.
Or did China spark the fire in western countries to care about this stuff?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2026/...
Finland has trees in billions. Still google should follow the laws and hand in the right permits.
Also sucks to think that mature trees take a really long time to grow. For example, Oak trees often live 150 - 300 years.
The bigger thing I worry about isn't the felled trees, but rather the power consumption of the data center. And for that, I think it's generally good that google is placing a datacenter in a cold climate country.
In other words, a plantation?
Its ridiculous and insane if you think about it for five seconds.
They bring substantial tax revenue to their towns, while having basically zero environmental impact. After the „water usage“ thing becomes old (since they barely use any) apparently they’re going for „chopped trees“, nevermind that land use is very modest and rounds to zero when considering a country’s forrest inventory.
And no, they don’t even drive up electricity bills in any meaningful way.
Until it is not; some companies are actually putting environnemental & employees health issues with sincerity in their contracts. With shared responsibilities.
It was about making an environmental assesment before starting on the clearing.
Which is mandated by law.
Now the environmental impact cannot be assessed.
This is making the entire country quite angry.
We all know It's okay to subcontract evil, like having poor paid workers in Asian countries. The big company is never at fault in such cases /s
GuestFAUniverse•40m ago
Choco31415•22m ago
sejje•5m ago
eesmith•20m ago
For Google, a fine of ~EUR 5 billion is a rounding error in their cost of doing business.
kristjansson•6m ago
Not really? That’d be ~1% of global revenue and ~2% of opex? Sure they could pay it, but it’s not a negligible amount.
helsinkiandrew•17m ago
You can buy a similar sized forest for €50-150K.
https://www.metsatilat.fi/en/osta?property_type=forest&area_...
miohtama•13m ago
What the news is about is "environmental impact study".
Aurornis•2m ago
Or maybe this is a bad measure?
You also forgot that Google owned the trees that they cut down, so they would be compensating themselves.
The debate is about the order in which a contractor pulled permits. It’s silly how much people are obsessing over some trees being cut down. This happens with all development.