Wynn Alan Bruce via Facebook
The man from Boulder, who set himself on fire before the US Supreme Court on Earth Day, apparently acted in protest against inaction on climate change.
Climate activist Win Bruce, 50, died on Saturday, the day after his actions before the nation’s highest court in Washington, DC. He was taken away for treatment, but did not survive.
Kriti Kanko, who described herself as a friend of Bruce and a Zen Buddhist priest in Boulder, said on Twitter that Bruce’s actions were a planned protest.
“This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to draw attention to the climate crisis,” she tweeted.
She declined to comment further when she reached The Denver Post on Sunday, saying she needed time to grieve.
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However, she told The New York Times that she was not entirely sure of Bruce’s motives, the newspaper said, saying “people have been brought to extreme amounts of climate grief and despair” and that “what I don’t want to be it so happens that young people are starting to think about self-immolation. “
There are indications that Bruce has been considering this for some time.
On his Facebook page, Bruce published in October 2020 a free education course on climate change. A year ago, on April 20, 2021, he added a comment to this post: “4-1-1”, apparently a reference to the helpline number in the directory that people used for information.
Then, in October 2021, he added fiery emojis to this commentary, according to a publicly visible editorial history. Earlier this month, on April 2, Bruce added the date on which he would set himself on fire. The last message was: “4-1-1 (fiery emoji) April 22, 2022.”
His family did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
Bruce, who has lived in Boulder since 2000, identified himself as a Buddhist and worked as a photographer. He cites and shares the teachings of Shambhala Buddhism, based in Boulder, on his Facebook page.
Jesse Friedman, executive director of the Boulder Shambhala Center, did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday. Shambhala International is now based in Canada, but has deep roots in Boulder.
Brianna Birch, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police in Washington, DC, said Sunday that, to her knowledge, investigators had not found any manifesto or note with Bruce’s body. She said police were still investigating his motives.
Bruce set himself on fire in an obvious imitation of Vietnamese monks who burned to death in protest during the Vietnam War. His Facebook page marked the death of Tich Nat Khan, an influential Zen Buddhist master and anti-war activist who died in January.
Tich Nat Hanh, in a letter he wrote in 1965 to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., adored these monks. Kritee quoted this letter in another tweet about Bruce’s death on Sunday morning.
“At the time, the press was talking about suicide, but that’s not the case. This is not even a protest, “Tich Nat Khan wrote of the monks, adding that” burning yourself in a fire “means proving that what you are saying is extremely important. There is nothing more painful than burning yourself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with extreme courage, candor, determination and sincerity. “
Mariam Zuhaib, Associated Press
The Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday, January 19, 2022, in Washington.
The US Supreme Court heard arguments in late February on an important environmental case that could limit or even remove the Environmental Protection Agency’s powers to control pollution. The court’s conservative majority has expressed skepticism about the agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions, suggesting the judges’ decision could deal a sharp blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to tackle climate change.
Bruce’s Facebook page often talked about activism against climate change, as well as Buddhism.
Crete told The New York Times that the last time Bruce spoke to her was in a Facebook post he sent in January asking if she had seen his post praising climate activist Greta Thunberg.
She added that if she or another Buddhist teacher in Boulder had known about his plan to set himself on fire, they would have persuaded him to do so.
There have been previous cases of public self-immolation due to climate change. David Buckle, a well-known civil rights lawyer who became an environmentalist, set himself on fire in Prospect Park in Brooklyn in 2018 to protest against climate change and died. In a letter earlier, Buckel hinted at the spiritual roots of self-immolation during protests, including in Tibet.
And in Washington, Arnav Gupta burned in front of the White House in 2019 and later died of his injuries. The motive in this case was never determined. Mohammed Allancy, a Yemeni-born FBI informant, set himself on fire in front of the White House in 2004 to protest his government treatment, but survived. Norman R. Morrison, a Quaker, burned to death in front of the Pentagon in 1965 in protest of the Vietnam War.
Portions of this article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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