Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

daveon.design

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 113 posts

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#101

Post by Rinzler89 »

racional wrote: post #95
Rinzler89 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Citation needed, especially for the "pretty strongly" part. Are you the kind of person who also needs citations that the KGB (and modern FSB) try to influence western elections too?

Are you the kind of person who doesn't understand the difference between "tries to influence" and the obviously much stronger "pretty strongly influenced" claim the above commenter was making? Or who thinks: "Okay, so we've been hearing a lot about the FSB and attempted election meddling. So if someone on the internet makes a spurious claim about an amazingly successful operation the KGB supposedly pulled off back in…

It's not "supposedly", there:s plenty of evidence of Russian troll farms online pretending to be Americans trying to influence elections and denigrate Ukraine online.

And regarding gas and nuclear, Plenty of EU high level politicians from Germany and Austria were close to the Kremlin and after their mandates were over took well paid positions in Russian oil and gas companies being proof.

What part of this logic makes you think that Russia couldn't have anything to do with pushing the anti nuclear agenda on Europe in order to maintain EU dependent on their gas that you need to be spoonfed precise proof? It's not like the FSB publishes their dark ops online or that western counter intelligente Tracking FSB ops publish their immediate findings. But various journalist do make educated guesses on this without the "we did it" explicit proof.

So please be so kind as to use Google and your brain before demanding "source pls or it never happened" for every little thing.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#102

Post by eru »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #74
jFriedensreich wrote: post #45

The foresting practices were among the first things i noticed flying to Tallinn. Instead of carefully picking trees to harvest selectively from a wider forest area as i am used to in most of Germany, there seems to be whole football fields of forest just cut down completely and then regrown as a whole in a plantation like fashion similar to how crops are grown. I am not an expert by any means but i thought this pract…

When visiting Germany I went through the Black Forest area. I was expecting something like you'd see in British Colombia or Northwestern USA. Instead what I saw was forestry plantations of monocrop non-native trees and clearcut patches of forest covering entire mountainsides. I tried looking up where an example of old growth forest can be seen in the area and apparently they simply do not exist.

The clearcut patches are probably a reaction to the bark beetle.

(And the recent bark beetle infestation is largely a reaction to the earlier monocrop planting. DW had a good piece on that recently. Most places are planning to regrow their forests with more diversity in species.)

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#103

Post by eru »

stefanfisk wrote: post #97
actionfromafar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80% (or more!?) of Swedish "forests" are really just monoculture tree plantations, too.

And it's practically illegal to grow your forest any other way even as a private land owner

Could you link to an explanation?

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#104

Post by racional »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #101
racional wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you the kind of person who doesn't understand the difference between "tries to influence" and the obviously much stronger "pretty strongly influenced" claim the above commenter was making? Or who thinks: "Okay, so we've been hearing a lot about the FSB and attempted election meddling. So if someone on the internet makes a spurious claim about an amazingly successful operation the KGB supposedly pulled off back in…

It's not "supposedly", there:s plenty of evidence of Russian troll farms online pretending to be Americans trying to influence elections and denigrate Ukraine online. And regarding gas and nuclear, Plenty of EU high level politicians from Germany and Austria were close to the Kremlin and after their mandates were over took well paid positions in Russian oil and gas companies being proof. What part of this logic makes…

[Troll farms, recent German scandals etc]

I'd continue further with you here, but you seem to be very, very confused about some very basic things. We were talking about (empty) claims of KGB influence back in the 1980s. Not modern troll farms or German scandals in the past decade. The latter have absolutely no bearing of any kind on the former.

But various journalist do make educated guesses on this without the "we did it" explicit proof.

At least in principle (when they are not being grossly irresponsible) they attempt to draw inferences from boring things like, you know, actual substantiated facts (from multiple sources), or at least interviews with people claiming direct knowledge of such. Not -- as we have with the assertions you are strenuously defending -- wild-hair speculation about "could have" happened, in the complete absence of any hard facts or direct evidence of any kind.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#105

Post by tpm »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #52
tpm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that few really, the technology is not very complicated.

Well, I work for one of such corporations, doing modelling and simulation of HVAC/R systems, heat pumps included. You can believe or not, but there is not much competition there, unless you consider, for example, Carrier and Viessmann as separate manufacturers (and they are not since May 2023).

Nibe, Stiebel Eltron, IVT, Thermia, Vaillant, Daikin, IME, Hoval, Grubmann, Hitachi, Atlantic/Fujitsu, BDR Thermea, Mitsubishi Electric, I could probably find many more. Some are probably local to Central Europe, but that only reinforces my point.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#106

Post by ahartmetz »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #74
jFriedensreich wrote: post #45

The foresting practices were among the first things i noticed flying to Tallinn. Instead of carefully picking trees to harvest selectively from a wider forest area as i am used to in most of Germany, there seems to be whole football fields of forest just cut down completely and then regrown as a whole in a plantation like fashion similar to how crops are grown. I am not an expert by any means but i thought this pract…

When visiting Germany I went through the Black Forest area. I was expecting something like you'd see in British Colombia or Northwestern USA. Instead what I saw was forestry plantations of monocrop non-native trees and clearcut patches of forest covering entire mountainsides. I tried looking up where an example of old growth forest can be seen in the area and apparently they simply do not exist.

Keep in mind how different the population densities are.

In the Middle Ages, all (accessible) German forests were harvested until not much was left. Most still existing forests have been re-planted and managed to produce wood since then.

There are exceptions in the form of nature preserves like Naturpark Pfälzerwald.

By the way, there are some fun docmentaries about the hard work in forestry a couple of decades or even more than a hundred years ago. This is one, the rest should show up in suggestions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeU5u4VGkrI

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#107

Post by ahartmetz »

treprinum wrote: post #77
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like softwood lumber forestry in general in western Canada, too. Mass monocrop plantations, then basically clearcut and replanted. And at least when I was a kid and out in the foothills camping with parents, huge users of herbicides, too. They'd attempt be PR-clever about it, too. Along the major roads, it looked all nice. Get about 200ft in on a gravel logging road and you'd see mass clearcuts. Fly over in a…

Vancouver island is famous for that. In comparison to Eastern Europe the monocultures in Canada get mostly replanted, in the Eastern Europe they most often don't.

Eh, it seems like, historically, forests did not get replanted until the wood ran out, and then they did ;)

When that point was reached is very different by region.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#108

Post by BitPirate »

treprinum wrote: post #66

The whole Eastern Europe is getting raped by wood-hungry companies - look at Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia etc. and compare satellite photos from 2015 with those from 2024 - truly Brazil-level deforestation but in the EU, often with the pseudo-justification of saving forests from certain insects... Even Germany is going through that.

Pseudo justification? The bark beetle is wreaking havoc in our forests here in Germany.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#109

Post by watwut »

fxtentacle wrote: post #29
sccxy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be good to have forestry experience before writing articles. I guess one day of planting a forest is already a lot of help. Planting apple tree in garden is not forestry. I wouldn't write an article about how doctors treat cancer wrong if my only experience is my dead grandmother.

You had a chance to educate a genuinely curious fellow human. And you blew it by being overly negative.

I kinda feel like writing about how someone does nothing when they actually do things, you just did not bothered to actually investigate how what you write about works is being overly negative in the first place.

Re: The War on Estonian Forests (2022)

#110

Post by jFriedensreich »

treprinum wrote: post #67
jFriedensreich wrote: post #45

The foresting practices were among the first things i noticed flying to Tallinn. Instead of carefully picking trees to harvest selectively from a wider forest area as i am used to in most of Germany, there seems to be whole football fields of forest just cut down completely and then regrown as a whole in a plantation like fashion similar to how crops are grown. I am not an expert by any means but i thought this pract…

You should revisit your knowledge of how things are done in Germany and see the clear cuts popping up everywhere, even in Taunus mountains next to some of the richest parts of the country.

you should just fly (aka google maps sattelite view) over germany and fly over estonia to see what i mean. i am not saying this practice does not exist in germany but the difference in extend is just immediately visible. Its probably the most obvious difference from a brids eye.
Post reply on HN