- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- world@lemmy.world
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Meh, it’s a monocultural wood farm not some kind of untouched nature reserve. Tesla also has to replant trees in a different location. Lots of legitimate things to criticize about Tesla, but this is barely worth mentioning.
It’s not a brilliant criticism of Tesla, but it’s a fine reminder for anyone who still believe in eternal growth and that we can consume our way out of the climate crisis. You’re not doing the world a favour by buying a brand new EV.
It’s far better to buy an EV than a combustion car. Yes, walking everywhere would be more environmentally friendly.
Or cycling. Or public transportation. Or buying a used car for when you need it and driving as little as possible.
This idea that everyone should be buying a new car every decade or so is killing us.
Cars have a limited lifespan and new ones are needed and desired.
To a degree, but cars are not designed with disability in mind, and they are pushed on consumers to upgrade much more often than needed. Car lobbyist have successfully pushed towards building societies where everybody needs cars.
It’s not natural and it’s not necessary.
Of course new cars will still be needed and they should not be running on gasoline. But we need to consume less. Buying a new EV does not give you a low climate footprint.
If I remember correctly, there is a pine monoculture typical of Brandenburg. It’s not a forest, it’s a plantation that would have been harvested in a few years anyway. The ecological damage is therefore very limited.
It’s weird that the article forgot to mention this little fact
Shoddy journalism.
These days I just lump all shoddy journalism and ragebait in with intentional, calculated, psychological warfare. Why give them the benefit of the doubt when they don’t respect your energy or attention?
If serious, that is a cynicism verging on the pathological. How much did you pay for journalism this month? And yet you expect it to be professional and ethical and to “respect your attention”.
They don’t do it for those specific trees though. They do it because clearing trees and building a factory changes the region’s water household:
“In one of the driest regions in Germany, too much of the environment has already been destroyed,” she said. “An expansion and thus even more destruction of forests and endangerment of the protected drinking water area must be prevented.”
I remember when climate activists were storming this factory and Lemmy users berated me for calling out the fact that Tesla factories and electric cars in general are a fucking disaster for the environment. It’s pathetic how easily people are convinced that 10 tonnes of e-waste is the solution to the toxic sludge slowly drowning us all
If a car drives more than 60.000 km in its lifetime, a battery powered vehicle will be more environmentally friendly. With every additional kilometer driven, it will be better than combustion vehicles.
Sure, driving less is always better.
Yeah, we need less cars overall. But those cars we build should be BEVs mainly.
Also there is global and local environmental effects. What can have relatively smaller global effects can still have huge local effects, and subsequently indirect global effects, that may not be attributed correctly.
The opposition to the Tesla plant is mainly because of their lavish consumption of ground water in a strongly stressed water resource, intransparency about potential pollution to that water resource region and last but not least political influencing on the local environmental regulatory bodies, to make the factory happen while looking the other way on environmental regulations.
It is perfectly reasonable for people not to want a factory to steal and poison their water while the government deliberately looks away. Tesla could have addressed legitimate concerns proactively and respectfully. Instead they gaslighted the people and picked fights with many local stakeholders like the local water utility.
• Whatever cars we produce, should be battery-electric.
• Eastern Germany is in need of employment opportunities.
• It’s a plantation, and Tesla is required to plant trees elsewhere.
• Elon Musk is a terrible human being. But at least in Germany, there is a functional government to oversee this factory.
Which is to say, I have no objections to Tesla building a factory here.
Addendum: Yes, public transportation is better, if you have it. Living in your workplace is even better. For some of us, driving a BEV is a pragmatic compromise. Hydrogen is wasteful and stupid. Fossil fuels, including most hydrogen, is fucking stupid. AfD (aka. “We’re definitely not Nazis”) thrive where unemployed is high. Those trees are now houses, furniture, and toilet paper. By functional, I don’t mean efficient, corruption-free, or anything like that in absolute terms. But compared to Texas, CCP-China, or most other places in the world, it is somewhat functional for the purpose of overseeing industry. Well, apart from those giant holes in the ground where there’s coal, and all those emissions scandals. And the German environmental movement is, in large parts, a bunch of unwitting russian sock-puppets. Ripened for the enshittification of the internet by decades of soviet/russian propaganda.
In a water protection area no less.
But who cares, it was planted monoculture anyways.
With that argument you can cut down every single tree in Germany, because we don’t have any real forest anymore anyways. But who needs trees, if we have luxury EV’s.
The Kellerwald forest and bits of Rügen are primordial. Lots of other patches of forest haven’t been touched in a long to long long time, and then let’s not forget commercial forests that aren’t monoculture but mostly natural. Clear-cutting is about the worst thing you can do to a forest, not just when it comes to ecology but also economy.
IIRC it would take something like 100 years from a total memorandum on cutting down trees and Germany being fully covered in forest, again.
🎶 “How ba-a-a-ad can I be?” 🎶
ELONgated cancer on society.
Sure… What did trees to us anyway. Cut it all down in the name of profit!!!
These tree farms were planted to make a profit in the first place.
True sure. Still they are getting cut down in the name of profit (be it for the tree plantagee or Tesla)
But since they are to be cut down eventually nevertheless, them being cut down now for a construction site isn’t as bad as the article makes it seem. Especially since Tesla was obliged to plant trees for an actual forest (i.e. diverse species) as compensation, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise. So in the end, cutting down these trees even creates more forest than before.
These tree farm monocultures need to be replaced with more climate suitable and biodiverse mixed forests anyway. They’re dying all over the country because of droughts and Borkenkäfer bugs. Whole forests in the Harz mountains are gone.
Nothing of value was lost by cutting down this forest.
