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They still broke the law. The law is kinda strict about logging.

I understand that, I responded to a comment talking about the ‘environmental damage’ and was putting it in perspective. Again, it’s five hundredths of one percent of the land logged each year in Finland. It’s less than a rounding error.

What are the odds the permit that Google or their contractor failed to pull would’ve been granted? I’d put the odds at 99% given that Google purchased the land. It was inevitable.

The problem is that they didn’t do their law-mandated due diligence: they were required to assess the impact on nature beforehand. They did not do that. It cannot be done post-facto. We don’t know what species inhabited the area, and things like that.

Yes, the notable thing isn't that they broke the law, it's the magnitude of the crime committed compared to the media response from it.

It's wildly decoupled in such a way that only full blown moral panic farming could materialize.

I would hesitate to call it a panic. That’s shifting the narrative from ”megacorporation is doing evil” towards ”people are just panicking over nothing”.

Which is, of course, something a damage control agent would try to push.

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