Wynn Alan Bruce

On Friday, Earth Day, a man from Colorado named Wynn Alan Bruce set himself on fire in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. He has died from it.

Bruce posted to his Facebook months earlier, making it clear that his act was self-immolation in the tradition of Buddhist monks, and that it was his way to make a final statement about the climate crisis.

Bruce's act, at first, was not getting much coverage in the U.S. press, or if it was, was described as suicide. I'm not sure it's still getting much notice.

Vietnamese author, activist, and Buddhist priest Thich Nhat Hanh talked about the Buddhist priests who burned themselves during the Vietnam war this way:

The press spoke of suicide, but in the essence, it is not...burning themselves aimed only at alarming, at moving the hearts of the oppressors, and at calling the attention of the world to the suffering endured then by the Vietnamese. To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance…. The Vietnamese monk, by burning himself, says with all his strength and determination that he can endure the greatest of sufferings to protect his people. To express will by burning oneself, therefore, is not to commit an act of destruction but to perform an act of construction, that is, to suffer and to die for the sake of one’s people. This is not suicide.

Bruce is not the first person to burn himself to death in the U.S. to make an ultimate statement about the climate crisis.

What does it take to shock people in this country?

 

By the way, it's going to be almost 120°F all week this week in India and Pakistan.