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IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

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Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#261

Post by beowulfey »

loceng wrote: post #23
piokoch wrote: post #14

This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt. "Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1] I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous. Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain them…

It's because they're fighting the arguably true reality that the majority of their furniture is designed to be disposable, and consumers are generally fine with that. I'd like to be wrong, though until we require companies to be responsible for all costs associated with the full lifecycle of a product so externalized costs are incorporated, we're not going to develop the most sustainable practices.

If you compare Ikea furniture to the comparable items you get from Target or Walmart, Ikea is hands down far better quality. Sure it might not last generations, but it is affordable and built from basically sawdust so I have to imagine their 1% usage comes from simply the scale of their production rather than inefficiency or anything like that.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#262

Post by tonyedgecombe »

surfsvammel wrote: post #225
piokoch wrote: post #14

This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt. "Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1] I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous. Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain them…

Isn’t it a sad world we live in when our gut feeling always is that “this smells like a PR trick”. I’m not saying it isn’t, just that it’s sad that we have built a world where we don’t trust our companies motivations.

HN is particularly cynical though, the top post on nearly every article is negative.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#263

Post by throwaway0a5e »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #57
johnnycerberus wrote: post #42

Not implying that this is corporate propaganda to cater to the US public, but something similar happened to my country where saving the planet is not on the agenda of its citizens since there are other problems that need to be solved first. [1] "IKEA’s goal is to purchase wood which is 100 per cent FSC-certified from these countries. At the same time there are many indications that forests with high conservation valu…

"countries with corrupt officials will eventually end up in prison" Majority never will, see Navalni exposing theft after theft and ending up in jail himself.

Scapegoats and targets of witch hunts notwithstanding, nobody goes to jail for doing what is the local norm.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#264

Post by vilius »

nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

I have IKEA socks (probably illegally made by https://theholeinmysock.com/shop/women/ikea-socks/) and tend to wear them in summer. People often compliment me for this odd choice of socks. Others find it confusing. However when I ask them if they prefer IKEA or LEGO as a brand they still choose IKEA. Statistically insignificant but I thought I’d still share.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#265

Post by adrianN »

ekzy wrote: post #202
adrianN wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most cost effective way is probably dropping a few hundred million anti personnel mines in the forest. They're very cheap to produce, very expensive to remove, and reliably keep people out of the area.

That's quite... clever. But what about the wildlife?

My uninformed guess is that while the wildlife would be impacted, it would still fare better than when humans intrude in their habitat.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#266

Post by tonyedgecombe »

paganel wrote: post #133
piokoch wrote: post #14

This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt. "Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1] I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous. Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain them…

Not throwing furniture away every few years will seriously help solve the problem. Of course, that would mean fewer sales for companies like IKEA.

They already think the Western world has reached peak stuff:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/weve-hit-pe...

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#267

Post by danielheath »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #234
mystcb wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a different point of view, I would say that I don't see their furniture as "designed to be disposable", more that there is good marked for re-use through other people. Spotted a few comments from people saying they have had second hand items (3rd, 4th etc) - and I think that in my head is where my version of "disposable" has come from. When I no longer want an Ikea product because it doesn't fit, or no longer ne…

When people say "designed to be disposable" they don't mean reuse is not possible - just not likely, because a thing wears out quickly, or is a hassle to give someone else. Former means there's not much of a second-hand market, the latter means that even giving away for free is too much work compared to just dumping it. I'm very much surprised about the amount of comments here on HN (today and in many previous discus…

Some regions are more humid, and the same particleboard that lasts decades dry will break down quickly.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#268

Post by adrianN »

glenneroo wrote: post #250
adrianN wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most cost effective way is probably dropping a few hundred million anti personnel mines in the forest. They're very cheap to produce, very expensive to remove, and reliably keep people out of the area.

There are also numerous indigenous human tribes and untold number of mammals which would likely set these off. And what if you ever want to use the area? We are still finding mines from WWII all over the world. If you absolutely have to take the macho-military-method, I'd personally recommend drones...

The whole point is making the area unusable without the option of changing your mind after the next elections.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#269

Post by glenneroo »

detritus wrote: post #240
glenneroo wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that firing missiles into forests is the most intelligent use of resources...

Why not? You'd likely not need IraqWarII levels of commitment - just a few enthusiastically-delivered missives at 1100kph to get the message across. A few loitering drones and a few dozen more missiles might actually be a highly efficient use of resources. I'm not sure where 'intelligence' comes into play here, beyond condescension of an idea you evidently disagree with.

Apologies I didn't mean to be derogatory. I was just a little bit surprised at the bravado-military mentality that surfaced on a tech forum. To clarify, there are so many issues here I don't even know where to begin, just some quickies off the top of my head:

- the most obvious was mentioned already: forest fires, when missiles explode in a forest you are trying to protect, things tend to burn and fire tends to spread i.e. there might be little forest left to save after you're doing killing everyone who has bad intentions.

- where do you even set these up that they arrive on time to actually hit moving targets?

- how do you ensure you don't kill innocents?

- how do you even _find_ nefarious actors, when forest canopy makes it very hard to find anything, not to mention the Amazon forest is mind-numbingly huge.

- AFAIK the military generally has an inventory of weapons they have to keep stockpiled, so the tax-payer will pay for extremely expensive weapons to be used and built again (great if you want to support military-industrial complex).

As stated elsewhere, the issue is deeper and not addressable by blowing people up. The people doing this have nothing to lose because they have little or no opportunities for making money, so they take any job they can find. Do you believe we should just murder people who make questionable decisions based on their survival? You and I are sitting comfortably behind a computer having this discussion and I would venture that neither are us are qualified to talk about what it's like to be that close to starving.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#270

Post by DoingIsLearning »

jcims wrote: post #254
glenneroo wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that firing missiles into forests is the most intelligent use of resources...

You just time the operation to minimize risk of wildfires, which is already pretty low in a rainforest. The only challenge I see is that the folks running the saws and the skidders aren't the ones profiting from the operation. So maybe you take some extra precautions to avoid killing the crew, but destroying the equipment seems like a perfectly acceptable use of resources.

> You just time the operation to minimize risk of wildfires, which is already pretty low in a rainforest.

You seem misguided, rainforest is not equivalent to high humidity or rain all year round, you absolutely have wildfires and it is not a 'pretty low' risk. [0]

Also most of these operations are lead by organized crime and explore poor people in their day-to-day operations. Killing desperate and poor people that work on these illegal operations seems like a very disproportionate colateral for anyone that cares about upholding rule of Law, or you know just general ethics.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Amazon_rainforest_wildfir...

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