{"id":40982,"date":"2022-04-25T19:38:23","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T01:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/boulder-climate-activist-who-set-himself-on-fire-is-remembered-as-just-a-great-guy\/"},"modified":"2022-04-26T01:38:23","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T01:38:23","slug":"boulder-climate-activist-who-set-himself-on-fire-is-remembered-as-just-a-great-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/boulder-climate-activist-who-set-himself-on-fire-is-remembered-as-just-a-great-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"Boulder climate activist who set himself on fire is remembered as \u2018just a great guy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. (J. Scott Applewhite\/Associated Press file)<\/span>onset<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Friends and family of Wynn Alan Bruce, a 50-year-old Colorado photographer who died after setting himself on fire outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, remember him as a committed environmental activist and a loving member of the Boulder community.<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C., confirmed to multiple media outlets that Bruce died Saturday after he was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital. The apparent self-immolation occurred on Earth Day, which has driven speculation about whether the act was meant to bring attention to the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Douglas Bruce, Wynn Bruce\u2019s father, did not know what inspired the action but said his son\u2019s lifelong passion for the environment first took root during trips to a family cabin on the shores of Lake Superior.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis commitment and concern about the environment and climate issues are really heartfelt and central to who he is. There\u2019s no question about that in my mind,\u201d Bruce said.<\/p>\n

Douglas Bruce said his son found a strong community in Boulder through dance, photography and Buddhism.<\/p>\n

Members of Boulder\u2019s Buddhist community have given contradictory public statements about Bruce\u2019s death. In a Twitter post on Saturday, Kritee Kanko, a climate scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund and a Zen Buddhist priest, identified herself as a friend and called Bruce\u2019s action \u201ca fearless act of compassion to bring attention to the climate crisis.\u201d Kanko also said Bruce had planned the action for at least a year.<\/p>\n

Kanko on Sunday declined a request for an interview with CPR News citing her personal grief but told The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> the self-immolation was a planned act of protest.<\/p>\n

Kanko later said she wasn\u2019t certain of Bruce\u2019s intentions. On Monday, she released a statement with other teachers and leaders of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, where Bruce attended meditations and other retreats. The group said no Buddhist teachers in the Boulder area knew about his plans beforehand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have never talked about self-immolation, and we do not think self-immolation is a climate action,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cNevertheless, given the dire state of the planet and worsening climate crisis, we understand why someone might do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

For help<\/h4>\n

Help for people having suicidal thoughts or for those who fear a person is considering suicide:<\/p>\n

Axis Care Hotline<\/strong>:24\/7 local response to your crisis & behavioral health needs: (970) 247-5245<\/p>\n

NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE<\/strong>:(800) 273-TALK (8255) or text \u201cTALK\u201d to 741741<\/p>\n

RED NACIONAL DE PREVENCI\u00d3N DEL SUICIDIO<\/strong>:(888) 628-9454<\/p>\n

FORT LEWIS COLLEGE COUNSELING CENTER<\/strong>:247-7212<\/p>\n

BOYS TOWN HOTLINE<\/strong>:(800) 448-3000.<\/p>\n

SAFE2TELL COLORADO<\/strong>:(877) 542-7233 or safe2tell.org<\/p>\n

COLORADO CRISIS SUPPORT LINE<\/strong>:(844) 493-8255 or text \u201cTALK\u201d to 38255 or online at coloradocrisisservices.org to access a live chat available in 17 languages. The line has mental-health professionals available to talk to adults or youths 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION<\/strong>:Colorado chapter information available at afsp.org\/chapter\/afsp-colorado\/<\/p>\n

FOR MEN<\/strong>:A website for adult men contemplating suicide is available at mantherapy.org<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Self-immolation has long been used as a form of political protest. Many activists lit themselves on fire in opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. In more recent years, Buddhist monks and others have taken similar action to bring attention to the Chinese occupation of Tibet. In 2018, a prominent civil rights lawyer and environmental activist cited climate change in a letter to the media before burning himself in Brooklyn\u2019s Prospect Park.<\/p>\n

There is some evidence Bruce may have telegraphed his intentions to follow in their footsteps on his Facebook page. In a cryptic comment to an October 2020 post about \u201cirreversible climate change impacts,\u201d he included a fire emoji and the date of his death. Edit logs show Bruce added the date \u2013 4\/22\/2022 \u2013 earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Among friends and acquaintances in Boulder, Bruce had a reputation as a talented photographer and compassionate activist. April Lyons, a psychotherapist who attended therapeutic dance classes with Bruce, recalled a moment after his cat was killed by a car. She said it left Bruce devastated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could just feel his compassion. His love really stuck out to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lyons said she\u2019s frustrated by comments on social media suggesting Bruce took his own life because of mental illness. She hired Bruce to take photographs for her business and said he was a professional who had a talent for bringing emotion out of his subjects.<\/p>\n

Boulder sculptor Brian Grossman wept on the phone, recalling the time he met Bruce more than a decade ago. After multiple sclerosis restricted his mobility, Grossman started using an electric tricycle to help him get around. Bruce, who worked at a local Vitamin Cottage at the time, helped him unload the tricycle from the car and assisted him with his grocery shopping.<\/p>\n

Grossman said that those moments turned into a steady friendship. Bruce went on to make a short documentary about how Grossman honed his craft as a sculptor despite his disease.<\/p>\n

In chance encounters on bike paths and on planned conversations over tea, Grossman said he came to appreciate Bruce as \u201ca great guy\u201d who shared his disgust with the indifference of politicians and other people in power. The pair agreed corruption created a government with little compassion for people or the planet, Grossman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been impressed with his genuine sincerity,\u201d he said. \u201cHe always wanted to shake my hand and just say, \u2018You\u2019re doing a great job.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruce, a 50-year-old photographer, died in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1826,785,28,955,22],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-buddhism","tag-climate","tag-headlines","tag-suicide","tag-us-supreme-court"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40982"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}