About 500,000 trees cut down at site of Tesla gigafactory near Berlin
www.theguardian.com
Satellite image analysis shows 329 hectares of forest cleared during development of factory in Germany
  • MaggiWuerzeEnglish
    9112·
    4 months ago

    The ‘forest’ cut down there is just a wood farm. There’s no ecosystem lost, since these farm are basically sterile

      • MaggiWuerzeEnglish
        6·
        4 months ago

        As @Encrypt-Keeper put it so well:

        Trees are trees, but trees aren’t forests.

        Forests are what’s actually worth prtotecting. This is not different from a field of corn. There is no ecological value to a farm of pine trees. If you ever walked in one, you would know that.

      • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        4 months ago

        Trees are trees, but trees aren’t forests. And a trees don’t have nearly the ecological impact of forests. In fact, in the U.S. and around the world we have the problem of way too many trees, which is causing apocalyptic ecological damage, because they’re the wrong kind.

        Cutting down all those trees in a tree farm isn’t hurting the environment very much for the same reason that randomly planting a bunch of trees for a tree farm doesn’t help the environment, which is why conservation is so important.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.mlEnglish
    456·
    4 months ago

    Trees planted there to farm wood. It’s a wood farm, not a natural forest. Get over it already.

    • Plopp@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1215·
      4 months ago

      With that logic we could cut down pretty much every single forest in Sweden and tell people to stop crying about it.

      Edit: Why the down votes? We pretty much have no natural forests left in Sweden. It’s basically all mono cultures planted with the intent to be cut down and sold. But if that’s the only forests you have they’re still very valuable (as forests I mean).

      • holgersson@lemm.eeEnglish
        176·
        4 months ago

        Why the downvotes

        I for my part downvoted because it’s just false equivalence. Cutting down a part of a commercial forest is pretty far from completely cutting “every single forest” in Sweden.

        Is it great that trees were cut down without replanting? No.

        Is there a perfectly cleared and infrastructurally connected plot of land in Brandenburg that Tesla could have used instead? Also no.

        Your comparison was basically the same as “We sell a plot of land to Elon? Why not just sell every plot of land to him then!”.

        • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          52·
          4 months ago

          The point is not that sweden is selling every inch of land to elon.

          The point is that every forest in sweden is “commercial forest” so that’s a meaningless justification.

          • sunbeam60@lemmy.oneEnglish
            23·
            4 months ago

            Ok, but take a step back. You’re now using the lack of original forest in Sweden to somehow argue against commercial forest in Germany being chopped down to make way for construction.

        • Plopp@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          4 months ago

          Ah I see the problem then. I wasn’t trying to equate anything. I was simply addressing the reasoning behind the statement (that non-natural forests don’t matter), taking it to the extreme to make point. I don’t know anything about the forest in question, and I wasn’t talking about it.

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    257·
    4 months ago

    Wanna bet that gigafactory somehow gets closed down or cancelled before opening? Tesla might not even survive that long.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      263·
      4 months ago

      Is it cheaper to cut down a forest than to buy a agriculture field?

      That area was planted to be cut down. It was a monoculture for wood harvesting and the surrounding area still is, AFAIK. The only change to the original plan has been to not plant young trees again after cutting everything down and instead build a factory.

    • BlackLaZoR@fedia.io
      82·
      4 months ago

      Depends. If you need specific location for logistic reasons, in the long run it might be

    • Random123@fedia.io
      51·
      4 months ago

      Probably since physical labor jobs is valued so cheap and thats not mentioning that immigrants are easily used for that kind of work for even cheaper

    • UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      Currently yeah, but why can’t we see electric cars as the step towards getting rid of oil? More electric cars will make more and more people want cleaner energy. Where eventually the fuel to run the cars comes from fully renewable sources.

  • sunbeam60@lemmy.oneEnglish
    143·
    4 months ago

    The number of trees is Europe is growing quickly. In fact, terribly so, this is an official part of the carbon mitigation strategy of many western democracies.

    You can be angry about a lot of things but unless this is some ancient yewtree wood, this is honestly a nothing-burger.

  • charade_you_are@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    53·
    4 months ago

    Can’t we just find some kind of space vehicle to put Musk in and fling it at Mars? He always wanted to go there I’ve heard.

  • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
    44·
    4 months ago

    When talking trade-offs you can’t just compare a combustion engine to an electric engine, you gotta consider electric public transport too. This has the bonus of pissing on Musk.

  • Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
    78·
    4 months ago

    Elon hate porn.

    Jesus Christ guys. Elon lives in your head rent free.

  • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.worldEnglish
    45·
    4 months ago

    Germany wanted this. They courted and kissed Elon’s ass for this. For all their pr, I’ve learned that Germans aren’t as progressive and smart as they would like the rest of us to think

  • yesman@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    4 months ago

    Mr. Musk, on a scale of 1-10, how tempted are you to build a bunker in Berlin?