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Comment by dcrazy | Hacker News Reader

If Finland prohibits them from continuing construction, they don’t get the data center they want, and they have to start over somewhere else.

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Yes, Finland can also tighten the rules on future permits etc. But after all this, Google will simply pay a fine and look for another country/forest to exploit. It will also not bring back the 250K trees they destroyed.

The trees were being "destroyed" (harvested) anyway, that is why they were planted. I don't understand why certain types of people are struggling so hard with the facts of this case.

The issue doesnt seem to be the trees, thats more for headlines.

The real issue seems thay they didnt implement proper water mitigation which is about 100x more damaging and potentially hazardous than cutting down trees. You can see it in the photo, they arent building that complex with much concern for the surrounding environment.

Trees can also provide soil stability. It’s possible that bulk razing this plot has turned it into a liquefaction zone.

Even if Google abandons the site and refuses to pay a fine, they’ll have lost all the money they have invested in site surveys, contracts, labor… even the delays alone of making them fulfill the EIS cost them money, not to mention whatever opportunity cost they were trying to minimize by flouting the environmental regulations.

Google is already feeling pain from this.

How much money did they spend? A few million, few tens of millions perhaps? That is not even a rounding error for them.

Maybe the delay and opportunity cost caused them some pain, but whatever they invested in contracts, labor etc is probably pocket change for them

You seem intent on arguing that enforcement of this cannot possibly matter. That kind of defeatism often wins Internet brownie points, but is not a useful way of actually being an effective force for change in the world.

This. This would be real pain for them in terms of latency to launch.

See the previous comments for why it's a mostly fake story designed to make low-information people angry.

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