Two men have been charged with cutting down the popular 150-year-old Sycamore Gap tree next to Hadrian’s Wall last year in northern England, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Daniel Graham, 38, and Adam Carruthers, 31, were charged with causing criminal damage and damaging the wall built in A.D. 122 by Emperor Hadrian to guard the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire.
They were ordered to appear in Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on May 15.
The sycamore’s majestic canopy between two hills made it a popular subject for landscape photographers. It became a destination after being featured in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.”
Tldr: people are dicks and absolutely will just break shit they know other people like just because they get a little thrill at causing other people to feel bad, or they really do just like breaking things and have no regard for others, history, or significance.
A couple years back there was a big search going on when someone decided to topple a cliffside tree and it fell onto the path below and crushed someone.
Looked it up just now because I never heard any follow up, and not only is it now reported as a “log” (idk if you can call a mostly dead tree a “log” but whatever) and three teenagers were charged.
At a state park near my house, there’s an insane amount of huge sandstone boulders deposited by glacial melt, and half buried. Someone knocked an eroded piece away that was kind of like a table that people had a tradition of “you walk up the super steep sideof the mountain/hill, grab a pebble on your way up, and when you get to the top you try to toss it onto the pile that’s accumulated over the years”
Now there’s just a slowly building pile of palm sized rocks where the sandstone table fell as people started a new tradition.
I fully believe that if the world was introduced to a newly discovered alien species that only exists in one single hole on Mars, and teleportation on the same day, someone would have stuck an explosive in the puddle by the end of the day.
Don’t forget the long-lasting human tradition of making sure everyone knew you were there by carving your name into something beautiful. Literally goes back thousands of years.
I think that this is a significant motivation. We humans want to feel that that we have impacted the world around us and left a lasting mark to show that we were here and that we mattered. In modern society, that is hard to accomplish because of how many are struggling and having to dedicate all of their time to jobs instead of connecting with the community and world around them.
Naturally, this causes people to act out and do shitty things, from vandalizing unique rock formations and trees to mass shootings. I pose that much of that spectrum is rooted in the same alienation that people feel due to the pressures and situations caused by the mass polarization of wealth and lack of societal benefit from automation.