RUTHFULLY YOURS

Eco-vandals are at it again in England, having launched an attack on the priceless ancient historical site Stonehenge.

Two activists from the radical environmental group Just Stop Oil desecrated the ancient monument with orange powder paint. The site was saved from further attack only by the immediate intervention of another person at the site, who seized their paint equipment.

Just Stop Oil lied on X, formerly Twitter, that this wasn’t a major problem for the historical site because the paint “will soon wash away with the rain, but the urgent need for effective government action to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of the climate and ecological crisis will not.”

No doubt the irony that they likely traveled to the site in carbon-emitting vehicles to spray propellant-filled industrial dyes onto a historical landmark, then recorded the whole thing on a petroleum products–filled camera, is lost on these eco-vandals.

“Stonehenge at solstice is all about celebrating the natural world — but look at the state it’s in! We all have a right to live a life free from suffering, but continued burning of oil, coal and gas is leading to death and suffering on an unparalleled scale,” Niamh Lynch, an Oxford student who participated in the stunt, said in a statement.

The official Stonehenge X account replied to the activists, telling them the site was both protected and environmentally sensitive, and that they should “expect a prison sentence.” Local police have so far arrested two people, likely the two who recorded themselves attacking the site.

Stonehenge is an iconic and priceless relic constructed over several phases between 3,000 and 2,000 B.C. and is precisely aligned with the movements of the sun and moon in a way that suggests the ancient people who built it possessed advanced knowledge of astronomy. It has captivated visitors for centuries due to its mysterious origins and the immense effort it must have taken to construct it with primitive tools. The site’s cultural and historical significance to humanity is hard to overstate.

Defacing the site is an act of wanton iconoclasm that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Taliban’s destruction of the “Buddhas of Bamiyan” statues dating to the third and fifth centuries, back in 2001, or the ISIS dynamiting of the priceless history of Palmyra in 2015 (though those sites suffered major destruction; Stonehenge at least remains standing). The world widely and rightly condemned those atrocities against history. Criticism of the attack on Stonehenge has been more muted and almost exclusively from the political right. “Just Stop Oil are a disgrace,” U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak said of the assault on one of his nation’s most cherished landmarks.

The structure has provided invaluable insights into its builders and has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1986. I was certainly astounded by its enigmatic aura during an all-too-brief visit. No doubt many others have been; the world-famous landmark draws around 1 million visitors annually from around the globe.

There’s a case that this is more than mere vandalism. In the U.K., terrorism can be defined as a violent action that “causes serious damage to property,” so this could qualify. In the U.S., any “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State” that attempt to change government policy can be considered terrorism.

Behavior like this is quite common for radical environmentalists. Just last week, the group Climate Defiance disrupted the annual Congressional Baseball Game in the name of global warming, only to play victim and claim, “We were brutalized tonight-beaten and bruised as we took over the Congressional Baseball game.” One of the activists even cried that her mother had been disappointed in her.

Climate Defiance is funded by Aileen Getty — who is, amusingly, the heiress to the Getty family petroleum fortune — so these activists were no doubt crying all the way to the bank.

Social has created the perfect conditions for such actions. Stunts from deflating the tires of SUVs in ultra-left wing Arlington, Virginia, in 2021 and bragging about it on an iPhone to defacing the Mona Lisa with soup in 2024 after a man dressed as a woman had already smeared it with cake in 2022 in the name of global warming have gone viral in recent years.

Former members of extremist environmental groups engaged in such protests describe the movement as cult-like, preying upon the fears of young members and encouraging those members to be anxious and emotional and even to carry out illegal actions.

Those who commit them are rarely punished harshly. Both Mona Lisa attackers were let off with mere slaps on the wrist, such as being placed in psychiatric care — a fairly light sentence for attempting to wreck a painting worth $1 billion!

Many environmentalists have abandoned promoting meaningful environmental stewardship in favor of a willingness to destroy property, to punish “climate sinners,” and to seek to control the lives of others with vandalism, destruction, and a blatant disregard for human welfare — even terrorism, in some cases. Sadly, such radical views have found a home in prominent environmental organizations — and even in the Biden White House.

Tracy Stone-Manning, Biden’s director of the Bureau of Land Management, which is arguably the most important environmental position in the federal government — it oversees 12 percent of the U.S. landmass or 245 million acres of public lands — once admitted she would have faced conspiracy charges had she not struck an immunity deal with a federal prosecutor in an eco-terrorism case in return for her testimony, according to an investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Stone-Manning testified in federal court in 1993 that she sent a threatening letter to the Forest Service stating she’d helped sabotage trees with a series of potentially deadly booby traps called tree spikes to prevent logging. Tree-spiking has caused serious injuries to loggers. One 23-year-old mill worker in California had his jaw cut in half when his saw exploded upon striking a concealed tree spike, according to the Washington Post.

Stone-Manning also advocated population control in her 1992 graduate thesis. She called having babies an “environmental hazard.” She’s hardly alone in that view in the halls of Democratic power. Former president Barack Obama’s science czar, John Holdren, once stated that he wants to see a “decline in fertility to well below replacement” in the United States because “280 million [Americans] in 2040 is likely to be much too many.” (As of 2024, there are more than 333 million Americans; Census projections estimate there will be 373.5 million Americans by 2040.)

In 2013, Greenpeace-affiliated vandals destroyed a genetically modified crop of Golden Rice in the Philippines because of alleged health concerns. The rice was modified to prevent Vitamin A deficiency, which causes blindness and malnutrition, and was to be given to impoverished children. Vitamin A deficiency kills 1.15 million children each year, according to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. A study by Cambridge University estimates that Greenpeace’s delaying of Golden Rice has cost 1,424,000 life-years since 2002 in India alone.

Sadly, the pushback against environmentalists’ extreme tactics is rarely substantial. In 2018, Greenpeace USA was sued by an energy company for allegedly training activists to criminally sabotage pipelines — yet the litigation is still pending six years later.

Interestingly, non-Western countries have no problem punishing such actions. Other Greenpeace activists irreparably damaged the Nazca Lines, a centuries-old World Heritage Site in Peru, for a publicity stunt in 2014. The Peruvian government filed criminal charges against the activists, calling it “a true slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred,” causing the deranged environmental group to actually apologize for once.

Environmental stewardship may be a laudable goal. But radical environmentalists abuse the goodwill of those who genuinely care about the environment to act as petty attention-seeking criminals with few consequences. Then, society often rewards their horrendous actions, sometimes even with a place in the Biden White House. Until there are consequences appropriate to these destructive actions, we can expect more stunts like the defacing of Stonehenge — and worse.