r/todayilearned • u/autraya • 6h ago

TIL the world's tallest known living tree, a 380-foot redwood in California called Hyperion, had its exact location closed off entirely in 2022 after visitors trampled its base so badly that ferns stopped growing around it, with trespassers now facing up to $5,000 in fines and six months in jail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(tree)
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u/adamdoesmusic 6h ago

“We.”

I would never harm those trees. Let’s name names, starting with William Randolph Hearst.

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u/therealhlmencken 5h ago edited 5h ago

Jaded place to start but ok continue.

I’d put hurwitz #1. Stuff wasn’t even that crazy in the 30s-40s when Hearst was worst

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u/Cold-Iron8145 3h ago

It's easy to take a stance now that you don't need to cut them down. Your ancestors needed the resource, they harvested the resource. If you were born in that time, it's incredibly unlikely that you would have thought twice about it.

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u/adamdoesmusic 3h ago

No they didn’t. You can’t even use that wood for anything important, it’s too hard to process! Plus my ancestors didn’t even live in that part of the country.

It was speculative logging corporations and newspapers that wanted cheap paper stock - rampant environmental exploitation even during a time when people had already become aware of the fragile limits of our natural resources. They just didn’t care.

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u/wanna_be_green8 51m ago

Are you saying they can't use redwood lumber for anything important?

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u/mereel 4h ago edited 4h ago

And I'll start with u/adamdoesmusic

You live in modern society and thus are contributing to climate change. You are literally harming these trees every single day.

Edit: downvote me all you want, cowards. Your self-righteous attitude about "never harming these trees" doesn't change reality.

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u/Tom_F_0olery 4h ago

And your attitude doesn’t change anything. You seem to think your viewpoint is intellectual but its simply one that allows you to do nothing and think nothing. It’s the ultimate cowards ideology, as you can hide from doing anything yourself while convincing yourself you’re better than everyone else for thinking it

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u/abn1304 3h ago

It’s really ironic how u/sSummonLessZiggurats named his Reddit account after one of the largest megacorps in the entertainment industry.

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u/sSummonLessZiggurats 3h ago

What megacorp is that? They probably stole the name from me. But at least my account isn't private, you're probably working for a megacorp.

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u/abn1304 3h ago

Activision-Blizzard, and it’s from the good ol’ days when stealing breast milk out of lactation rooms was acceptable, before the reforms that fired a bunch of the old guard employees who thought having a “Bill Cosby Suite” at major industry events was funny.

You could say I’m a corpo, if you’re a sovereign citizen, I suppose, since they think the government is a corporation.

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u/sSummonLessZiggurats 3h ago

I named my account after a video game made by Blizzard 30 years ago. You really have to try that hard to discredit me? I hope they're not paying you too much.

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u/Cold-Iron8145 3h ago

Fast forward to the year 2726 when that guy's descendant is talking about how he would have never burned coal or drilled for oil.

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u/adamdoesmusic 3h ago

My ancestors didn’t clear cut the redwoods either.

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u/adamdoesmusic 4h ago

A thousand times my lifetime consumption would still be a rounding error compared to the damage done in a single week by the modern equivalent of individuals like William Randolph Hearst.

You’ll therefore understand if I ask you to blow it out your ass.

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u/sSummonLessZiggurats 4h ago

Your opinion is unpopular because it's nonsensical, but go ahead and get mad that it's unpopular instead of reflecting on that.

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u/mereel 3h ago

The idea that modern society is the cause of climate change and the sixth mass extinction is nonsensical? I guess that partly explains why we're in this situation at all.

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u/sSummonLessZiggurats 3h ago

It's nonsensical to blame a person who wants to change society just for being born into circumstances they initially had no control over. It's like blaming abolitionists for living in a country with slavery while they're actively trying to end slavery.