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A Colorado Buddhist and climate activist set himself ablaze before the Supreme Court building on Earth Day in protest of the current climate crisis. He died from his injuries the next day.
According to CNNWynn Bruce, who was standing on the plaza next to the Supreme Court building, was self-immolating at 6:30 p.m. He was then airlifted to a Washington, D.C., hospital. Although there were no other injuries and no threat of public safety, the police had temporarily closed the area to further investigation.
Bruce, a 50 year-old photojournalist, died after being inspired by Greta Thunberg’s posts. Thich Nhat Hah, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk activist, also posted. Bruce was a member the Boulder Shambhala Center and owned a studio in Colorado called Bright and True Photography. HITC reports.
Kritee Kanko a climate scientist friend of Bruce said his actions were an act of protest and to raise awareness about the climate crisis. The New York Times said. Kanko also mentioned she was not completely clear on Bruce’s intent, but was aware of his despair in regard to the lack of action being taken to fight climate change.
According to the New York Times, Bruce could have been planning his self -immolation for at most a few weeks. He had found an edited comment of Bruce’s from 2021 that he had posted under one of his posts about irreversible climate changes in 2020. It included the date of his self -immolation using a fire emoji.
“It’s all a mess. How are you going be able to create a climate movement when 75% are depressed? If you really step back and you look at what we’re doing, what are we actually doing? We are killing our own bodies knowingly. We are wiping out the life on the planet,” Dr. Phoebe Godfrey, an associate professor in residence of sociology at the University of Connecticut said.
“It’s all a mess. How are you going be able to create a climate movement when 75% are depressed? If you really step back and you look at what we’re doing, what are we actually doing? We are killing ourselves unknowingly. We are wiping out the life on the planet.”
Dr. Phoebe Godfrey is an associate professor in residence in sociology.
Dr. Godfrey is the author or co-editor of numerous books on sustainability and environmental justice. He recently received a grant from UConn’s sociology department to establish an Environmental Justice Leadership Training Program. This program will provide valuable leadership skills for students interested in climate activism in the upcoming fall.
“I’ve grown a lot on this issue, and one of the things that has shifted for me is spending more time with the Earth, with Mother Earth,” Godfrey said. “Think in terms of the collective, Mother Earth would not want you to kill yourself for her. People are fighting to stay alive–quite the opposite. The two are very different things. We need people to stay alive and fight and do it in a strategic and collective way.”
This isn’t the first time that a climate activist has self-immolated to bring attention to the climate crisis. According to The GuardianIn 2018, David Buckel, a climate activist and LGBTQ+ rights lawyer, was 60 years old. He went to Prospect Park in Brooklyn and emailed media outlets about his plans. Then he poured gasoline on himself, and set himself on fire. He later died from his injuries.
The New YorkerReports said that Buckel had written a note with multiple messages, minutes before setting himself on fire. This was to express his concerns and explain the motivation for his self-immolation. One part of Buckels message read “most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.” Buckel sent this to multiple media outlets via email.
Godfrey states that activists must first work towards respecting the earth, and co-existing with it in order to mobilize and cause climate-related changes.
“You can’t solve the problem with the same thinking that created it. You can’t address climate change without completely letting go of desire for control over nature, over others,” Godfrey said.
