It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, April 29, 2022
Taliban bans TikTok and PUBG in Afghanistan
The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August last year
The Taliban in Afghanistan have now banned TikTok and PUBG in the country, saying that the apps mislead the younger generation.
TikTok is a video sharing app while PUBG is a popular mobile game. The ban was announced by Taliban spokesperson Inamullah Samangani last week. TikTok's "filthy content was not consistent with Islamic laws," he told Bloomberg.
"We've received a lot of complaints about how the TikTok app and the PUBG game are wasting people's time," said Samangani. "The ministry of communications and information technology was ordered to remove the apps from internet servers and make them inaccessible to everyone in Afghanistan," he further stated.
The Taliban have already banned music, movies and television soap operas which has left Afghans with few options to keep themselves entertained. In a statement on Thursday, the cabinet said that the applications "led the young generation astray." The country has banned PUBG's subsidiary company Krafton as well.
The Taliban, which had earlier claimed that they will take a more liberal approach to government, have been restricting the social lives of Afghani citizens gradually.
In a Gallup survey conducted in February this year, almost 94 percent of Afghans rated their lives poorly enough to be considered suffering. It also found that a significant portion of the male population in Afghanistan believes that women are not treated with respect in the country.
"For the first time in the history of Gallup surveys in Afghanistan, the majority of men in Afghanistan (60 per cent) do not feel that women are treated with respect and dignity, according to the poll. Only 9 million Afghans have access to the internet in Afghanistan, a country which has around 38 million people, writes The Independent. There are around four million social media users in the country, and TikTok is one of the popular apps used by young Afghans.
The group has made life miserable for all citizens, particularly women, who are not even allowed to get an education beyond the 6th grade currently.
The Taliban have barred women from boarding flights without a male chaperone. Women are forbidden from taking inter-city road trips alone, they can only visit public parks on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays.
All male government employees have been asked to wear a beard to work or risk being fired from their jobs. The regime also recently took a U-turn on its earlier promise of allowing women to get an education and decided not to allow the re-opening of girls' schools beyond sixth grade.
MISOGYNY AND FEMICIDE
The Taliban have imposed various restrictions on women and girls, despite pledging a softer rule compared with their first stint in power in the 1990s
Photo: AFP / Wakil KOHSAR
US reports its first human case of H5 bird flu
By Shivam Patel April 29, 2022 — The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has announced the first known human case of H5 bird flu in the United States in a person in Colorado.
The person tested positive for avian influenza A(H5) virus and was involved in the culling of poultry presumed to have had H5N1 bird flu, the centre said in a statement.
“This case does not change the human risk assessment for the general public, which CDC considers to be low,” the agency added.
The H5 avian flu has been found in 29 American states. CREDIT:AP
The patient reported fatigue for a few days as the only symptom and has since recovered, the CDC said, adding that the person was being isolated and treated with the influenza antiviral drug oseltamivir.
H5N1 viruses have been found in US commercial and backyard birds in 29 states and in wild birds in 34 states since the centre started monitoring for illness among people exposed to the viruses in late 2021.
“CDC has tracked the health of more than 2,500 people with exposures to H5N1 virus-infected birds and this is the only case that has been found to date. Other people involved in the culling operation in Colorado have tested negative for H5 virus infection, but they are being retested out of an abundance of caution,” the CDC said.
Globally, this is the second human case associated with this specific group of H5 viruses, which are currently predominant, the CDC said. The first was reported in Britain in December 2021.
Reuters
NEDERLANDS
Bird flu claims over three million victims in six month outbreak
Business April 29, 2022
The bird flu epidemic in the Netherlands continues unabated and at least 600,000 ducks and hens have been killed this month alone, according to government figures.
The latest case is in Lunteren, where bird flu has been found on a poultry farm with 50,000 birds. It is the fifth case of bird flu in the Gelderland town this month and 37 other farms within three kilometres of the affected location are now being checked for the disease.
The Dutch poultry industry is concentrated around Lunteren and Barneveld in Gelderland, where some 230 farms are located within a 10 kilometre radius, local paper the Gelderlander reported.
Some three million birds have been killed because of bird flu in the six months since the disease was first identified in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands has some 1,700 poultry farms, half of which produce eggs – totalling some 10 billion eggs a year.
Bird flu infections have so far been found on 30 farms, most of which were producing eggs.
‘Your couriers have to use food banks’: Deliveroo accused of hypocrisy over Trussell Trust partnership
Deliveroo has joined forces with national food bank charity The Trussell Trust to provide two million meals to those in need. But critics have warned the gig economy firm’s model has left its couriers relying on food parcels themselves.
Deliveroo and The Trussell Trust have joined forces to deliver two million meals to people facing food poverty. But critics have warned Deliveroo’s model means of their riders are relying on food banks to get by. Image: The Trussell Trust
Deliveroo has been accused of “sanitising its increasingly discredited public image” by teaming up with a national food bank charity after repeated allegations of low pay.
The gig economy firm announced this week it would join forces with The Trussell Trust to deliver two million meals to people in need and to allow customers to donate to the charity’s food banks with in-app food orders.
“Once again we are seeing Deliveroo show more concern for sanitising its increasingly discredited public image than for the welfare of its riders and drivers, many of whom are at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis,” said Ahmed Uhuru Hafezi from the Couriers Branch of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), the union that represents Deliveroo riders.
“Take a visit to food banks across London and you will see couriers filling their delivery bags with emergency food supplies for their own families, forced into relying on charity due to poverty pay and a lack of basic rights such as sick pay.
“If Deliveroo wants to tackle food poverty and hunger in the UK, it should start by paying its workers enough to cover their expenses and feed their families, rather than relying on the good will of food banks and its customers.”
P&O scandal: Forcing ferry companies to pay UK minimum wage would ensure something good comes out of this sordid affair – Scotsman comment
The scandalous decision by P&O Ferries to sack nearly 800 staff without notice and replace them with cheaper agency workers caused justified anger across the political spectrum
The P&O ferry Spirit of Britain sails into the Port of Dover after undergoing sea trials
That anger increased when it emerged the company had taken this action despite receiving £11 million in taxpayers’ money to furlough staff during the Covid pandemic and again when chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite revealed his £325,000 salary had not been cut.
In contrast, the new crew are being paid an average of just £5.50 an hour – £4 below the UK’s minimum wage but permissible under international maritime law.
So UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’ pledge that the government will introduce new legislation to force ferry companies that use British ports to pay the minimum wage is most welcome and suggests that at least something good will come out of this sordid affair.
His call for P&O Ferries to return its furlough money is equally just. Companies that receive public money should be made to realise that it comes with conditions, even if they are only moral and not, as they should always be, legal.
Speaking as the firm began cross-Channel sailings for the first time since sacking their staff, Shapps also called for Hebblethwaite to resign, a moderate request in comparison to union demands for him to be prosecuted and jailed.
P&O Ferries has acted in defiance of public opinion, basic standards of decency and, by Hebblethwaite’s own admission, employment law.
It’s time for our elected representatives to remind this rogue company of the importance of all three and the power that they hold.
Climate change affecting Scotland’s lochs and reservoirs
A report published this week by Scotland’s Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW), shows that between 2015 and 2019, 97 per cent of monitored Scottish lochs and reservoirs have increased in temperature.
While most warmed by up to 1.0°C per year over this period, 9 per cent increased by more than that – some by up to 1.3°C per year.
Researchers warn these changes increase the risk of harmful algal blooms developing, which could restrict their use for recreation and water supply, and as a safe habitat for wildlife.
Waters in the south and east of Scotland are expected to warm the most at first, but this climate-related impact will reach all parts of the country by 2040.
The report makes a number of recommendations to address the immediate impact, as well as further research to improve our understanding of how climate will impact the complex functioning of lochs and reservoirs in the future.
Environment minister Mairi McAllan said: ‘This important research provides yet more worrying evidence of the risks of harm from climate change on Scotland’s water environment. It is vital we do more to mitigate those impacts, to seek to reduce the pace of warming but also to adapt to it.
‘We have committed £243 million since 2015 through the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme to support land management practices which protect and enhance Scotland’s natural heritage, improve water quality, manage flood risk and mitigate and adapt to climate change.
‘Scotland is renowned worldwide for the quality of our water. Research like this will be hugely valuable in informing the development of policy solutions and measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and also protect, restore and enhance these vital natural assets.’
Freshwater ecologist Dr Linda May of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), lead author of the report, said: ‘This research has shown, for the first time, that climate change is already warming our lochs and reservoirs in Scotland, and that this trend is likely to continue.
‘It provides early warning of the potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity, water supply and recreational use, and highlights the need for mitigation measures to be put in place as quickly as possible.’
Dr Pauline Lang, project manager for CREW, said: ‘This pioneering research led by experts at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology demonstrates that, without intervention, climate-driven risk is projected to further increase by 2040. To prevent the modelled scenarios becoming reality, we trust the recommendations proposed will enable effective climate action for safeguarding freshwaters now and during the critical decades ahead.
‘This project is a great example of how CREW can pivot towards Scotland’s water-related needs by bringing a community of researchers and stakeholders together to collaborate on addressing the most important environmental concerns of this time.’
NatureScot freshwater and wetlands advice manager Iain Sime said: ‘Scotland, like the rest of the world, is facing an unprecedented climate emergency. The findings of this comprehensive review are stark, demonstrating the impact that climate change is already having on our freshwater lochs and reservoirs, and their biodiversity.
‘The need for urgent action is clear, and at NatureScot we are using the £65million Nature Restoration Fund to prioritise efforts that support the conservation of our lochs and ponds.’
Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) senior ecologist Ian Milne said: ‘CREW’s report, which used SEPA data from 142 lochs and reservoirs, is important in highlighting some of the climate change pressures Scotland’s environment is facing.
‘The findings emphasise the significance of SEPA’s ongoing work to tackle the threats of climate change and biodiversity loss, which is being done in partnership with Scottish Government, local authorities, Scottish Water, environment and community groups, farmers, land managers and others through our River Basin Management Plans.’
UPDATED
Activist’s self-immolation stirs questions on faith, protest
By DEEPA BHARATH and COLLEEN SLEVIN
April 26, 2022
In this undated photo provided by Jeffry Buechler shows Wynn Bruce in Longmont, Colo. Bruce set himself on fire in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, April 22, 2022, prompting a national conversation about his motivation and whether he may have been inspired by Buddhist monks who self-immolated in the past to protest government atrocities. (Jeffry Buechler via AP).
Wynn Bruce, a 50-year-old climate activist and Buddhist, set himself on fire in front of the U.S. Supreme Court last week, prompting a national conversation about his motivation and whether he may have been inspired by Buddhist monks who self-immolated in the past to protest government atrocities.
Bruce, a photographer from Boulder, Colorado, walked up to the plaza of the Supreme Court around 6:30 p.m. Friday – on Earth Day — then sat down and set himself ablaze, a law enforcement official said. Supreme Court police officers responded immediately but were unable to extinguish the blaze in time to save him.
Investigators, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said they did not immediately locate a manifesto or note at the scene and that officials were still working to determine a motive.
On Saturday, Kritee Kanko, a Zen Buddhist priest who described herself as Bruce’s friend, shared an emotional post on her public Twitter account saying his self-immolation was “not suicide” but “a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis.”
She added that Bruce had been planning the act for at least a year. She wrote: “#wynnbruce I am so moved.” She got sympathetic responses as well as backlash.
Kanko and other members of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center in Boulder, released a statement Monday saying “none of the Buddhist teachers in the Boulder area knew about (Bruce’s) plans to self-immolate on this Earth Day,” and that had they known about his plan, they would have stopped him. Bruce was a frequent visitor to the Buddhist retreat center in the mountains near Boulder where he meditated with the community, Kanko said.
“We have never talked about self-immolation, and we do not think self-immolation is a climate action,” the statement said. “Nevertheless, given the dire state of the planet and worsening climate crisis, we understand why someone might do that.” On Facebook, Bruce wrote about following the spiritual tradition of Shambhala, which combines Tibetan Buddhism with the principles of living “an uplifted life, fully engaged with the world,” according to the Boulder Shambhala Center. Bruce also posted praise for Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, a leader of engaged Buddhism, around the time of his death in January.
Bruce’s act of sitting down and setting himself on fire was reminiscent of the events of June 11, 1963, when Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese monk, seated cross-legged, burned himself to death at a busy Saigon intersection. He was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngo Dinh Diem, a staunch Catholic. THIS WAS THE EARLIEST ANTI WAR PROTEST AS WELL
In a letter to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr,. whom Hanh counted as a friend, Hanh wrote that he drew inspiration from the Vietnamese monk’s self-sacrifice, saying: “To burn oneself by fire is to prove what one is saying is of the utmost importance. There is nothing more painful than burning oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with utmost courage, frankness, determination and sincerity.”
In Tibet, anti-Chinese activists have employed self-immolation as a form of protest. The International Campaign for Tibet says 131 men and 28 women – monks, nuns and laypeople among them – have self-immolated since 2009 to protest against Beijing’s strict controls over the region and their religion.
Buddhism as a religion does not unilaterally condone the act of self-immolation or taking one’s life, said Robert Barnett, a London-based researcher of modern Tibetan history and politics.
“Killing yourself is considered damaging in Buddhism because life is precious,” he said. “But if a person self-immolates because of a higher motivation and it’s not out of a negative emotion such as depression or sadness, then the Buddhist position becomes far more complex.”
If self-immolation is done to help the world, it might be accepted as a positive action, Barnett said. He cited a story from the “Jataka Tales,” a body of South Asian literature concerning the prior incarnations of the Buddha in human and animal form. In that particular tale, an incarnation of the Buddha, in an act of selfless compassion, offers himself to an emaciated tigress who was so hungry that she was ready to devour her own cubs.
“But that kind of self-sacrifice is not encouraged, developed or talked about for normal people (other than the Buddha),” he said, adding that this is because of “the immense difficulty of cultivating positive motivation in any situation, let alone maintaining it under stress or in conditions of extreme pain.”
Buddhism emphasizes emotional balance, inclusiveness, kindness, compassion and wisdom, said Roshi Joan Halifax, an environmental activist and abbot of the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“What we’re seeing today among many people is hopelessness,” she said. “What we are called to do is not to be disabled by that sense of futility, but to transform our moral suffering into wise hope and courageous action.”
Despite the pessimism that some climate activists may feel, there is reason to remain hopeful, Halifax said.
“You see that people are waking up to the magnitude of the climate catastrophe,” she said, noting that countries and corporations are moving away from damaging practices and toward clean energy.
“I feel inspired and hopeful by our ability to change and adapt in this ever-changing world,” she said. “My heart is heavy that (Bruce) did not have that kind of optimism.”
Those who knew Bruce saw a man who was kind, playful and idealistic – an avid dancer who participated in weekly events. He was also known for biking and embracing public transportation.
Bruce, who enjoyed the outdoors, brought an intensity to whatever he did, said his friend Jeffry Buechler. On Buechler’s wedding day in 2014, Bruce, on a whim, decided to go for a dip in a cold mountain lake early in the morning, he said.
Bruce also suffered lasting effects from a brain injury he sustained in a car wreck that killed his best friend about 30 years ago, Buechler said.
Marco DeGaetano, who met Bruce in the 1990s when they both attended a Universalist church in Denver, said “Wynn seemed to have an affinity for people who needed help.”
He recalled Bruce being kind to a church member with a mental illness when others distanced themselves.
DeGaetano said he last saw Bruce about a month ago, and he seemed outgoing and friendly as always — every time he saw Bruce, “he had a smile on his face.”
___
Bharath reported from Los Angeles and Slevin from Denver. Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington D.C. and researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York also contributed.
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
APRIL 28, 2022
Alberto Miranda
Why it’s so difficult to talk about self-immolation
Last week, Wynn Bruce, a 50-year-old climate activist, set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court building. After he died, a woman who identified herself as his friend tweeted that the act was planned to bring attention to the climate crisis. That it happened was reported by national news outlets, but it is difficult to figure out what more to say about self-immolation.
Bruce’s death reminded me of a time in my life when I was obsessed with finding that something to say. In 2014, I planned a reporting trip to New Delhi to meet with a young Tibetan activist. A few years before, he had tried to self-immolate in protest of Chinese rule of his homeland, but the police tackled him to smother the flames. A 2012 story in The New Yorker estimated that at least 40 Tibetans had self-immolated over the previous year to protest Chinese rule. Total numbers are hard to come by, but needless to say, these acts continue to occur. And the phenomenon is not exclusive to Tibetans.
I had started thinking about self-immolation in 2013 while reporting on a mass shooting at a nursing school in Oakland, Calif., and how it had ripped apart Tibetan, Korean, Filipino and Nigerian immigrant enclaves in the area. At a coffee shop in Berkeley, I met a Tibetan writer named Topden whom I hoped would give me some insight into his community and help connect me with one of the survivors, a Tibetan nursing student.
We ended up talking about self-immolation and the nature of death. In my 20s, I had studied Buddhism, and although I had long since wandered off the path to enlightenment for an ego-driven writing career, the idea of detachment was still central to my thinking, as it is today. This was followed by a bout with cancer that shook loose many of my thoughts about dying. In this state, I could understand why someone would sacrifice his or her life to ease the suffering of others. But the act of self-immolation still felt foreign to me — I had never met anyone who believed in anything that much.
At the time, I was also thinking through the idea of protest and the meaning of sacrifice. In ways that I can now identify as vain and a bit annoying, I did not understand why my friends, many of whom considered themselves “political,” refused to give up anything for their causes. (I, of course, did very little myself.) I was fascinated by how someone arrived at the decision to choose such a painful end. People who set themselves on fire were not, as far as I could tell, activists who were simply choosing a spectacular form of suicide, but rather people who had made a conscious decision to end their lives for what they believed in.
And yet, the act terrified me as much as it was confusing. And I couldn’t really understand why the Dalai Lama, who seemed to have the influence to stop these self-immolations, appeared almost ambivalent about them. Around the time I was talking to Topden, the Dalai Lama had said that he saw the self-immolations as a form of “nonviolence.” In 2017, he told the TV host John Oliver that he could not condemn them because he did not want the families of the people who had died to feel sorrow that their loved one had gone against the Dalai Lama’s wishes. (This article from the Brown Political Review looks at his stance.)
I generally try to write in moments of discomfort, but before I was supposed to report the story about the Tibetan activist, there was a larger ethical question that I couldn’t quite resolve. Most people’s knowledge of self-immolation begins and ends with the famous photo of Thich Quang Durc, the South Vietnamese monk who burned himself alive in Saigon in 1963 to protest religious persecution by the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. This image captivated the world and inspired other monks in South Vietnam to follow suit. International media coverage continued, including a dispatch written by a young David Halberstam. Since then, the consensus has been that people self-immolate to shock the public into global outrage over an injustice, or, in Wynn Bruce’s case, an impending catastrophe. This, of course, requires media attention.
Over a series of conversations with my editor at the time, I realized that by writing a story about self-immolation, I might inspire someone to do it. It didn’t matter that much of the scholarship on Tibetan self-immolation seemed to suggest that international attention wasn’t the only motivating factor. As long as the possibility existed, I did not feel comfortable writing the story, and so I let it go.
My thoughts about self-immolation receded until 2017, when Aijalon Gomes, a 38-year-old man who had fallen on hard times, was found burned in a park in San Diego. Police weren’t sure whether he had lit himself on fire by accident or had self-immolated.
Seven years before, when Gomes was teaching English in South Korea, he felt a calling to go teach children in North Korea. Upon crossing into the country through China, he was quickly apprehended and sentenced to eight years in a labor camp. While in custody, he tried to kill himself, but was eventually released after former President Jimmy Carter went to North Korea. Gomes later wrote a book titled “Violence and Humanity: A Saga” about his travails.
Before any of this, Aijalon Gomes was the resident adviser of my dorm during my freshman year of college. He mostly stayed to himself, but he would quietly tell us please to turn down our music with a reassurance that it wasn’t a big deal. When I talked to my friends from college after hearing about his death, nobody knew what to say other than, “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” We believed there was no meaning to glean.
It’s hard to get comfortable with such violence. Wynn Bruce’s act of protest feels senseless because his death will not change the way legislators, corporations and individuals go about their polluting lives. There is a silent calculation among witnesses that accompanies any act of civil disobedience, even those we may agree with on principle: What is the point? This is standard fare for how many people think about protests, violent or not. We tend to pathologize the activists and imagine that they must be animated by the pettiness and greed that motivates us. In many cases, they are.
But self-immolation forces the witnesses, whether in person or through the news, to confront an intensity of conviction that goes well beyond what they may think is possible. In this way, self-immolators like Thich Quang Durc become almost inhuman, even holy. At the same time, the act establishes an entirely personal connection because the real question at hand isn’t really, “Why did he do that?” Rather, the self-immolator is asking you — with all the intimidation and self-righteousness a person can muster — “Why don’t you care even half as much as I do?”
I am still horrified by self-immolation, but I also believe that we should resist the urge to write it off as the last act of the mentally ill and the desperate. Nor should we simply frame each incidence with some made-up measure of how much effect it has had on the world. The discomfort we feel over this practice and our sincere desire to see it end should not preclude us from taking it seriously as an act of protest. We should hope this practice ends, but we also shouldn’t just look away.
Wynn Bruce lit himself on fire on Earth Day 2022 because he believed it might inspire people to work against climate change. There is not any more or less meaning we need to take away from it.
Wynn Alan Bruce set himself on fire at the Supreme Court. Was his death really a protest about climate?
Some close to the 50-year-old are convinced his death was a protest to coincide with Earth Day, while others said they struggled to understand why he chose to do what he did. Sheila Flynn reports
(Facebook)
Last Wednesday, Wynn Alan Bruce asked two neighbours to drive him to the bus station in Boulder, Colorado so that he could travel to Denver.
One was unable to fit the trip into her schedule; the other, his next-door neighbour of 20 years, agreed. Chris King knew that Mr Bruce, 50, had suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a car accident as a teenager so was unable to drive. Instead, Mr Bruce got around the local area on one of his three bicycles – but not a sufficient mode of transport for the nearly 30 mile journey to Denver.
Mr King also knew that his neighbour, who lived alone with his cat in a townhome secured through a city affordable housing programme, had trouble focusing and organising.
Mr Bruce would start projects on his porch and then absent-mindedly abandon them, his neighbour told The Independent. Mr King cleaned up one such pile of collected items this week.
“I dropped him at the bus station, and he had a backpack,” says Mr King. Mr Bruce, who also had a small bag, told his neighbour that he was travelling to Denver to “meet with my meditation group”.
Mr King said: “A couple of days later, the cat was still in the window, and he wasn’t around.
“And then, I found out.”
Mr Bruce died after setting himself on fire on Friday, 22nd April – Earth Day – in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington DC. He was airlifted to hospital by a medical helicopter, and nearby roads were temporarily closed. Mr Bruce died 24 hours later, according to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
His self-immolation was described as “not suicide” the morning after his death, by a woman who described herself as a Zen Buddhist priest and a friend of Mr Bruce.
“This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis,” Dr K. Kritee, also known as Kritee Kritee or Kritee Kanko, tweeted on Sunday.
The DC police department has given no indication that Mr Bruce left a note, and witnesses said that he was silent before he set himself alight. Police would not comment to The Independent, citing an ongoing investigation.
Police in Boulder, where Mr Bruce lived for more than 20 years, are not involved in any investigations into his death, a spokeswoman told The Independent.
The details of his travels from Colorado to Washington DC are unknown.
While self-immolations have been used in protests before, such as among Buddhists and anti-war protesters during the Vietnam War, this is believed to be only the second time that it has been linked to climate change.
In 2018, climate activist David Buckel, 60, died by self-immolation in Prospect Park in Brooklyn in protest at the use of fossil fuels. Shortly before his death, Mr Buckel emailed a suicide note to several media outlets explaining his actions.
“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,” he wrote. Mr Buckel had been a prominent civil rights lawyer and LGBTQ activist and ran the marriage-equality project at Lambda Legal.
The only public suggestion from Mr Bruce that climate change motivated his actions were a few cryptic Facebook posts. In October 2020, he posted a link about climate change, science and global impact, and last year he commented on that post with a fire emoji and the date 4/22/2022.
Other posts – such as a quote from astronomer Carl Sagan or photos of Walden Pond – suggested a passion for environmental issues and clean air.
Mr Bruce’s father also appeared to suggest that climate change had motivated his son.
“I agree with the belief that this was a fearless act of compassion about his concern for the environment,” Douglas Bruce, 78, told The Washington Post.
“Everybody gets to decide for themselves about how their end of life is going to take place. I honor that. I honor that. I respect him for it.”
Wynn Alan Bruce left a cryptic message on his Facebook page a year before his death
(Facebook)
Multiple calls from The Independent to Douglas Bruce were not answered and a message was not returned.
However fellow residents of his quiet complex in Boulder, who’d known him for two decades, expressed extreme shock at his actions.
Several said that they had never heard him mention climate change.
Mr King found out about his neighbour’s death that weekend. The tragic news was shared with him by two people, whom he described as “caretakers”, after they arrived at Mr Bruce’s home.
The visitors told him that Mr Bruce had taken his own life. Another neighbour later discovered online that Mr Bruce had set himself on fire.
“Where did all that come from?” one neighbour had asked, Mr King recalled to The Independent.
“It could be something he was just obsessing about internally,” he added.
Most of Mr Bruce’s Facebook activity focused on Buddhism, meditation, nature and his own photography. He ran a small business called Bright and True Photos taking portraits. At times, he also worked retail jobs.
Mr Bruce loved cycling, hiking and being out in nature, say friends, who universally described him as “sweet”, “gentle”, and “kind.”
At the nearby store Natural Grocers, where Mr Bruce shopped regularly previously worked, employees were “quietly sad”, said a manager who asked not to be named.
“He was in here last week, smiling and happy,” she told The Independent.
She said that his former colleagues were in shock not just at his death but at the “level of planning”.
Pauli Driver-Smith, who tutored Mr Bruce for two years in photography and other subjects, at Front Range Community College described him as “a very kind, caring, compassionate person”.
“He liked talking to people,” she said.
The tutor was paired with Mr Bruce because their interests and talents aligned and, she told The Independent, because she also had a TBI.
Mr Bruce suffered a brain injury in a car crash not long after he graduated from high school in Florida.
According to a St Petersburg Times article, he and a friend were heading to pick up their dates in October 1989, the Washington Post reported, when their Oldsmobile crashed. His friend was killed and Mr Bruce – just days before he was set to join the Air Force – was flown by helicopter to Tampa General Hospital.
He survived with lifelong injuries, derailing his military ambitions and countless other plans that the young and talented athlete had been planning.
It was a “significant accident, and it took him a long time to recover,” his father told The Post.
Ms Driver-Smith told The Independent that she “could relate to [Wynn Bruce’s] struggles”. She said that he could have trouble focusing, calming down, or accurately gauging decisions.
Every TBI differs in effects and severity, according to The Mayo Clinic, with wide-ranging ramifications including everything from inability to organise thoughts and ideas; trouble following and participating in conversations; irritability; lack of awareness of abilities; or issues with multi-tasking, problem-solving or decision-making.
Mr Bruce’s eye for photography was exceptional, Ms Driver-Smith says, and his pictures exuded great “joy,” particularly those focusing on nature.
“I think he felt at peace in nature,” she told The Independent. “Nature has a way of wiping out a lot of the business and everything that’s around you. You get into nature and the quiet and it kind of helps centre you – and that’s one of the things he told me about Buddhism, is that it was helping to center him and helping him to be more grounded.”
Mr Bruce attended retreats at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, about 40 minutes northwest of his house in a pristine mountain landscape, according to neighbours and the Center itself.
The Ecodharma Retreat is not associated with the main Boulder Shambhala Center, in the heart of the city. Boulder Shambhala representatives said that they had no knowledge of Mr Bruce.
Boulder has a large population of Buddhists, with different communities varying in size and beliefs.
Ecodharma’s co-founder, Dr Kritee Kritee, was one of the first people who knew Mr Bruce to make a statement following his death.
In the tweet on Sunday, she wrote: “This guy was my friend. He meditated with our sangha. 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.”
A number of people expressed distress on social media at the apparent admiration for Mr Bruce’s violent death.
A day later, Ecodharma released a separate statement which said that the organisation “have never talked about self-immolation, and we do not think self-immolation is a climate action”.
“As we grieve the death of our friend Wynn Bruce and prepare a memorial page to honor him, we want to emphasize that none of the Buddhist teachers in the Boulder area knew about his plans to self-immolate on this Earth Day. If we had known about his plans, we would have stopped him in any way possible. That would be our spiritual, moral and legal responsibility. Just like everyone else, we have been trying to figure out what happened.”
The statement continued: “Nevertheless, given the dire state of the planet and worsening climate crisis, we understand why someone might do that… We hope we can hear Wynn’s message without condoning his method.”
The Independent has tried to reach Dr Kritee and Ecodharma for comment. Dr Kritee referred back to Ecodharma’s written statement.
Friends told The Independent that they struggled to understand how Mr Bruce had planned the trip, and what had convinced him to take his life so publicly and violently.
Beverly Lyne, a nurse who lives across the shared green space from Mr Bruce’s home, told The Independent that he also asked her for a ride last Wednesday. She said her conversations with Mr Bruce had always been casual and light.
“It seems as though he was able to plan and to get the funds to buy a ticket, but I don’t know, I can’t imagine that he put that together,” said Ms Lyne.
“We knew he had issues about just making day-to-day decisions,” she said.
She gestured to the grassy area between their homes.
“Here he’d put his hammock up and then sleep all day. It’s like, Wynn, this is not a campground,” she laughed softly.
Mr King said one neighbour described Mr Bruce as “suggestible”. His former tutor, Ms Driver-Smith, used the same word.
“He was, at times, easily led,” she told The Independent. “He was suggestible, I should say. You could suggest things to him and it was, ‘Oh, that makes sense,’ but I also think that the problem – and this is just a guess on my part, because ... I can be suggestible, and then I sit back and say, ‘Oh, wait a minute, that doesn’t make any sense – but at the moment it did,” she said, adding that it can be hard to “think fast.”
She added: “Getting to Washington DC, I could see him doing it on his own. Once he got to DC, how he managed to find the Supreme Court ... I don’t know, maybe he had help, maybe he didn’t.”
Ms Driver-Smith said that she wanted him to be remembered for his kindness and passion for people.
“He had a lot of potential, and he wanted to make the world a better place.
“I wish… that his passion for environmentalism and his passion for photography, that he had found a way to marry the two into something more positive than setting himself on fire.”
If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
