Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“That story about Google killing hundreds of thousands of trees in Finland for its data center project is such a perfect microcosm of what capitalism is doing to our world. Recent mass media headlines are saying the tech giant ‘illegally’ cut down ‘250,000 trees’, but both claims paint an inaccurate picture of what actually happened. Google killed 400,000 trees (250,000 near a town called Muhos and another 150,000 near the village of Otanmäki), and unless the company’s executives actually wind up going to prison for this, their actions cannot properly be described as ‘illegal’. I don’t know who first coined the saying ‘If the penalty is a fine, then it’s legal for rich people’, but it certainly applies here.” (10/27/26)