As Finnish newspaper Kalevareported last month, Google is under fire for clearing over 300 hectares — the equivalent of almost 500 football fields — for two new data centers in the northern part of the European nation without concluding the necessary environmental assessments.
Despite the assessments still being in progress, the tech giant’s contractors started clearing trees in the area months ago, raising the alarm bells at the Finnish Nature Conservation Association.
“Either this is gross incompetence from Google’s Finnish project company, Tuike Finland Oy, or gross disregard for Finnish legislation, or at worst both,” said the association’s chair, Hanna Halmeenpää, in a statement, as translated by Wood Central.
For those who haven’t looked at it
Google razed the forest without the environmental assessments to whether they could do that or not, aka ‘fuck your laws and the wildlife’
It’s a bit more complicated.
Tuike tried to argue that the project wouldn’t need that assessment as it wasn’t being done as part of commercially selling trees from a natural forest as a “natural resource” as the law was worded, and they tried to ask for a “case by case” exemption that would allow them to start the clearing without having to wait for the whole lengthy assessment process to go through the systems. That exception got rejected because “Forest nature does not only mean forests in their natural state, but also forests used for forestry” (the Finnish words being “luonnonvara”, “metsäluento” and “luonnontilainen metsä”.)
They might have been technically fine had they not sold any of the trees. But, I mean, what else can you do with 300 hectares of trees?
Fine them $1 billion per tree. Seriously. It has to really hurt them, or it will just be “the cost of doing business.” It has to be bad enough that they must sell off a division or two, and their stock has to tank 33% or more, so they, and everybody else watching, takes a hard lesson from it.
For those who haven’t looked at it
Google razed the forest without the environmental assessments to whether they could do that or not, aka ‘fuck your laws and the wildlife’
It’s a bit more complicated. Tuike tried to argue that the project wouldn’t need that assessment as it wasn’t being done as part of commercially selling trees from a natural forest as a “natural resource” as the law was worded, and they tried to ask for a “case by case” exemption that would allow them to start the clearing without having to wait for the whole lengthy assessment process to go through the systems. That exception got rejected because “Forest nature does not only mean forests in their natural state, but also forests used for forestry” (the Finnish words being “luonnonvara”, “metsäluento” and “luonnontilainen metsä”.)
They might have been technically fine had they not sold any of the trees. But, I mean, what else can you do with 300 hectares of trees?
Finnish source from HS.fi.
Fine them $1 billion per tree. Seriously. It has to really hurt them, or it will just be “the cost of doing business.” It has to be bad enough that they must sell off a division or two, and their stock has to tank 33% or more, so they, and everybody else watching, takes a hard lesson from it.
Won’t happen. I hope I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am.