Wynn Alan Bruce planned it for at least a year, and on Earth Day he followed through and lit himself on fire in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. He died of his injuries. He’s at least the second person to self-immolate in the last few years in the hopes of awakening mankind to the perils of climate change.
I sincerely do not want this to become a trend, in part because I really doubt that it will work. At the same time, anyone who is willing to lay down their life to try to save countless other lives deserves acknowledgement. If it doesn’t work, it won’t be because I refused to give it any attention.
Colorado photojournalist Wynn Alan Bruce, 50, suffered critical injuries in the incident at 6.30pm Friday on a plaza in front of the court. He was airlifted to hospital, where he died Saturday…
…Dr K. Kritee, a Buddhist priest from Boulder, wrote on Twitter that Mr Bruce had been planning to self-immolate for at least a year.
“This guy was my friend. He meditated with our sangha,” she said.
“This act is not suicide. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis. We are piecing together info but he had been planning it for atleast one year. #wynnbruce I am so moved.”
I won’t praise this act or encourage others to follow his example. But I’d like you to contemplate why he thought it was necessary.
We should contemplate what drove this man to do this and act to change a culture that continues to ignore the problem.
Climate change isn’t something that can be headed off. It’s already here and even if humans stopped all CO2 emissions yesterday, will continue for at least another 20+ years causing further warming from other feedback mechanisms.
What is more interesting is how many systems are already collapsing right now that are 100% ignored by 99.999% of the population. It’s interesting because all of these systems are going to 100% cause societal collapse and will 100% change politics as we know it. Ecofascism is coming and it’ll go hand-in-hand with right-wing authoritarian fascism.
I know it’s really uncomfortable to think about, which is why it will be ignored and hand-waved away, but collapse is here.
I’ll post a link to a great video for anyone who is interested. If you still believe everything is going to be OK, you can just ignore it like everyone else and downvote this post, it’s alright.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg
The video was pretty good until the prepper ending.
If things do get so bad that society collapses, then having a garden won’t get you far. Not only do we need to end the burning of fossil fuels, but we’ll have to capture some of the CO2 that’s already been released. For the latter, we’ll need society. If we don’t–then that nice place in the country decked out to survive the collapse of society won’t support a garden because rains will fail and floods will happen. Expect to have to hand pollinate plants too.
The prepping issue is simply a way to build a kind of resilience, and is the least important part of it. Having land and a garden is something most people won’t be able to do anyway. The most important thing is having a community and mutual aid.
All of that said, the important part of the video is to point out that it’s not just climate change that is coming – collapse will have multiple facets. Loss of arable land, potable water, insects/pollinators, oil/fertilizer, etc.
And capturing CO2 is pointless, as it would require opening a brand new carbon sequestering plant every day for the next 50 years just to get to neutral. And all of that is not to mention that human society would collapse if we stopped using coal/oil and emitting CO2…that’s the real son of a bitch.