Google Accused of Felling 300 Hectares of Forest for a Finnish Data Centre

24 days ago (woodcentral.com.au)

To put this in perspective, Finland apparently cuts down 600-700k hectares of forest each year. 87% of Finland is forest, about 23 million hectares.

Where is the net benefit to society through all this, one asks? I'm not a luddite but news like this makes me feel ill. Turning the planet into one big AI data center just doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies.

  • Far more forest gets destroyed for far less benefit all the time. Why does everyone suddenly care now?

  • An AI-assisted invention that solves climate change would pay some pretty good dividends, i think.

    • A decade from now the AI-assisted invention for solving climate change will be: "Plant more forests."

      After several trillion spent on AI, we're still waiting on AI to assist with anything more complicated building stock websites.

    • Yes, an AI-assisted invention which paradoxically involves uprooting God only knows how many trees across 300 hectares (which by definition, means destroying entire ecosystems). Yes this AI will save us from ourselves.