A sad case of self-immolation with fossil fuels, to protest fossil fuels
A green activist who was a pioneering lawyer for gay and transgender rights — including in the infamous “Boys Don’t Cry” murder case — committed suicide by setting himself on fire Saturday morning in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.
Attorney David Buckel in 2006APIn a gruesome protest against the ecological destruction of the earth, David Buckel, 60, left behind a charred corpse and a typed suicide note that said he was burning himself to death using “fossil fuel” to reflect how mankind was likewise killing itself, police sources said.
He left the note behind in a manila envelope marked “To The Police,” recovered from inside a black metal push cart he discarded at the scene.
Passersby were horrified to see Buckel’s blackened, prone remains.
“It was just lying there, on its back, knees slightly bent like someone would lie on the sand at the beach,” said Irena Ryjova, 44, who rollerbladed past at around 7 a.m., less than an hour after the immolation.
…
More recently, he worked as an urban gardener and ecologist with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, helping run what he called the largest composting program in the country to use only renewable sources of energy.
“There’s no denying that sticking with renewable resources means a lot of elbow grease with pitchforks and shovels,” he wrote in a 2016 article on the garden website.
More here at the NYPost: https://nypost.com/2018/04/14/burned-body-inside-prospect-park-appears-to-be-suicide/
h/t to “Charles the moderator”
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HT/me
‘I apologize to you for the mess.’……that was part of the note he left
I wonder did he use E10 gasoline, the one that has 10% ethanol?
Don’t know for sure but fossil fuel is what he had to use as Solar wouldn’t work at that hour
This is really a tragic case. The man was obviously suffering from mental illness. My sympathies go out to his family and friends.
Trebla, Agreed.
Interesting that there was an article today about Chic-Fil-A being “creepy” about their Christian beliefs and invading New York City.
The guy was clearly mentally ill. He should have checked into a psych ward.
Was he mentally ill because he was a radical leftist, or the other way around? Perhaps both lead towards each other, forming a feedback loop?
Patrick: “mentally ill because he was a radical leftist, (radical leftist contributing to his mental illness)” the other way around?”
Which caused the Catastrophic positive feedback loop that ended his life.
Well, I disagree with Buckel’s reasoning but, A Jewish friend of mind demonstrated to me through his actions that if you’re not willing to act on you convictions then they really aren’t convictions. So H/T to Buckel’s for taking into his own hand what most all the other CAGW alarmists are ready to inflict on everyone but themselves. The courage of being out of range.
You are supposed to “act” in order to win the game, not take yourself out of the game. We should follow examples like Gandhi or MLK who issued a clear message. This guy was definitely sick.
Marc, those leaders sought to restore the dignity and relieve the suffering of their people. Buckel’s cause sought to impose indignities, cause suffering, and even kill off the vast majority of humanity. I don’t advocate self-immolation, but then I am philosophically opposed to his worldview.
MarcSaunders’
Reminds me of Patton (paraphrase, don’t know the exact quote): “Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country. You win a war by making the other poor bastard die for their country>”
He obviously hadn’t thought it out. The amount of CO2 he released into the atmosphere by burning his carbon-based life form. He was protesting burning of fossil fuels by burning essentially fossil fuel.
It diminishes us all when this happens – a man needlessly taking his own life. What makes me angry is that he did it because he was lied to about the supposed global armageddon coming this way. It is they, who should have his death on their conscience. What is even sadder that those responsible don’t care and what is more will see this a ideal publicity to push their agenda. Truly there are some evil people,
More likely he was terminally depressed over a break up with his homosexual lover and used his failed involvement with environmental issues as an excuse to light his fire………[pruned] May he finally find peace with himself.
Why are the only responses to this I can think of in such bad taste I just won’t post them?
I suffer from a similar malady.
Normally, when I see someone doing something unutterably stupid, something that makes no sense, I also have a snarky, sarcastic response. Long ago I had a friend who committed suicide, had warned people, and found a place where no one could stop him.
Before he disappeared, he had left a note saying that it was like looking into a black hole from which there was no escape. The anger he felt was turned inward on himself.
There is nothing but sadness here. If the sense of desperation and anger is so grindingly heavy that the person suffering from it goes this far, sometimes even getting help has only a temporary effect. This is too sad.
If it was a “standard” suicide. It is entirely possible Buckel had a terminal illness and decided to go out in a very public way to leave a mark no one would forget. It was very public, he typed the note. Not the marks of a depressed individual who can no longer cope. Maybe, but I’m betting there more to this than appears on the surface.
I agree with Sara. It is a very sad case. Apparently, the guy had multiple mental problems that he could not resolve. Sad.
That may be because you are a decent human being.
IT does not good to mock or try to find something humorous in something like this.
It is sad.
The sadness is in how sick he was and he was not able to get the psychological help he so desperately needed. I would think there might be more to this story than we’ve been told.
that’s just nature taking its course.
if you love nature- you have to love extinction of stupid.
the question is how can you think that defying nature makes you look good?
that’s what got him to the bbq. who wants to delude himself like that?
will those responsible for filling his head with the garbage that led to him being so deluded that he took his life, please step forward and accept responsibility
crickets..
I thought not.
I am always of two minds when something like this comes up. I feel sadness for the family that have lost a loved one. I feel a greater relief, though, for the fact that no further victims will be taken by a monster.
Undoubtedly, the suicide of a certain Austrian “activist” in prison, after his ignominious failure to achieve his ends, would have been a tragedy to his family. The survival of approximately 80 million people thanks to the avoidance of a vicious and brutal regime, though, would have been a blessing to the world.
It is the Culture of Death versus the Culture of Life. Many of us, though too few, believe that God gave us life and wants us to live it fully. Others try to assume the ‘responsibilities’ of God unto themselves; “Ye shall be as gods”. That can only end tragically.
Sadly the poor guy bought into the new religion of AGW. And now they’ll make him a martyr. That is pathetic.
This is pathetic, not sad. A perfect example of the morality of self-sacrifice – self-immolation. The great question is not how to die well, but how to live well; not how to destroy one’s life, but how to make something of it.
I share your feelings.
My first thought as well.
I wonder if the had some medical issues which may have prompted him to carry this through?
He was driven to this by years of CAGW nonsense and looney-left doomer propaganda, and numerous and repeated concerted BS fear-campaigns, some of which others wrote, some of which he wrote—and damaged others.
He was told that 97% of scientists agreed, so it seemed a fairly legit conclusiion.
Which drove him completely insane, bit by bit.
Death is the ultimate solution to all the problems (real or imaginary) of life.
I know of a couple (in their 60s) so convinced of sea level rise that 2yr ago they sold their house (40 ft above HWL) for half its value & moved inland to a small new house (built on a river flood plain)… & this winter got flooded; that’s just increased their belief in CAGW. She now feels suicidal as they cant afford to move again.
And they called me stupid when I showed them the sea level records giving ~ 8″ /100yrs.
What belief in his belief system that was not loony?
He had all that social cred, all that money, not a bad looking guy and no one to share it with.
My belief that on top of group think crazy he was lonely. We know why.
The same can probably also be said of the other lefty causes he devoted himself to.
They teach this nonsense to 1st graders claiming it will make responsible citizens out of them, even when they know for a fact it isn’t true. Then this is the result, the poor guy probably suffered a lifetime of anxiety, just like a lot of other trusting people.
In my day, the 1960’s, my own grade school teacher insisted that if nothing was done about industrial air pollution, all life on earth would be wiped out in 20 years. That gave me a few sleepless weeks until completing my own research.
He didn’t kill himself because of global warming. His life was unbearable for deeply personal reasons. Obviously he suffered from depression. Much more respectable (in his sad mind) to kill himself for supposedly noble reasons.
I think most psychiatrists would agree that this unfortunate fellow was quite likely suffering from a sort of insanity called paranoia (not to be confused with paranoid schizophrenia). Nothing we can do to prevent this sort of tragedy. Human beings will be human beings. If they come to the notice of psychiatrists in time they should be committed to a mental institution if their enmity and hate is against some other individual person which often is the case.
I was going to post something along the lines of “Now if only all warmists followed suit, the world would be cured from this destructive ideological disease ….”, but changed my mind 😉
Yeah, but you did anyway.
How exactly did you change your mind?
Probably because you can imagine what the warmist responses would be if this had been a ‘denier’. And you can also remember their joy at the death of Professor Bob Carter. Some say that to follow suit would be stooping to their level. On the other hand, in battle fight fire with fire.
Trust me, other places people had no problem posting such things. People were incredibly crude, mean and thoughtless.
spetzer86, how else can one respond to madness but with bad taste?
“It is entirely possible Buckel had a terminal illness”
That was my first thought.
eddie
that was my thought as well
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/14/green-activist-lawyer-burns-himself-to-death-to-protest-global-warming/#comment-2790684
“There’s no denying that sticking with renewable resources means a lot of elbow grease with pitchforks and shovels,” he wrote in a 2016 article on the garden website.
Maybe he should have consulted Mark Jacobson regarding renewables or maybe he went into severe depression when he realized jacobson is a fraud.
[“Pitchforks” ?? .mod]
Pitchforks are a useful tool for cleaning CO2 from the air…
Mod~ ‘pitchforks’ is a reference to cleaning out stables. The end product of which can be burned for energy. Sort of.
It can—though it never should be. Let it compost to produce methane.
Ironic, in that I think the leading cause of respiratory illness in the developing world is from burning cow or buffalo dung in small burners for heat and cooking purposes. So in a way, renewables are causing more damage than fossil fuels.
No, I think he was just referring to the fact that compost needs to be turned regularly – a jolly hard job actually. I guess they had a really big heap and did it all by hand rather than machinery (probably huffing and puffing and expelling co2 by the truckload as they did so).
If he truly believes that doing without fossil fuels just means more elbow grease, then he has never actually tried the lifestyle he wishes on the rest of us.
Wished….
Sounds like he was about 40 years too late….
Oh, man, talk about the delicate balance between tragedy and comedy … I have to come down on the side of tragedy because no man is an island and each man’s death diminishes me, and because of the inevitable endless sorrow of his family … I’ve been meditating on this topic over on my blog if anyone is interested.
My best to all, enjoy this life, rumor has it we don’t get a second chance if we mess this one up …
w.
You don’t sound like a Hinduist.
It’s true, the Hindudes have another rumor …
w.
I once asked a good friend if she believed in reincarnation. Her response was ‘Yes, you have to keep coming back, over and over, until you learn to do things the right way.”
That made sense to me.
Sara: Sounds like being stuck in an endless transporter loop.
Personally I hate the theory of reincarnation. How are we supposed to learn from the mistakes of our past lives if we don’t remember them? How can practice make perfect without learning?
There is no improvement in reincarnation. There is only throwing a dart at a target blindfolded over and over until you hit the bullseye purely by luck.
>¿<
Maybe you only do get a second chance if you don’t do it right. Maybe we have to come back over and over till we’re sufficiently perfected for a wondrous beyond.
P.S. I know of someone who believes in reincarnation precisely for that reason.
Maybe but, of all the people I’ve ever known, I don’t think any of them reached the level of “sufficiently perfected for a wondrous beyond.” Must be the company I keep.
And what power would be responsible for determining this recycling of life
Mick April 14, 2018 at 6:10 pm
If the recycling happens in the US, that would be the EPA … I believe they have jurisdiction over everything.
w.
At the very least deciding what is and isn’t recyclable
The comedian Robin Williams, who committed suicide, said of reincarnation: “If it’s true, my luck, I’ll come back as me.”
Now that sounds like a depressed person to me.
Right – Willis, The Hindus would have it that your chances of a decent second chance are at least several hundred lifetimes away if you mess your Karma up with really bad stuff.
This is so sad. Messing up your Karma with really bad stuff includes suicide. It takes many lives to fix that.
The true agent of Karma is Carbon Dioxide.
The flesh of our bodies at death is converted to Carbon Dioxide and Water. These then are taken in by plants and become food for the next generation of beings.
The Ancients were unaware of this. They coined – Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes. The actual process is Carbon Dioxide to Carbon Dioxide.
re. the balance between tragedy and comedy.
Tragedy is what happens. Comedy is how you deal with it. link
Some think the scarier version is that you have to keep coming back until you get it right.
“Tragedy is what happens. Comedy is how you deal with it.”
Might be why we laugh when it hurts too much to cry.
“Too bad she won’t live. But then again who does.” – Blade Runner
“…all those moments…lost in time, like tears in the rain” -Blade Runner
“Give me four.”
“Futatsu de jubun desuyo.”
“No, four. Two, two, four.”
“Futatsu de jubun desuyo.”
“And noodles.”
“Wakatte kudasai yo.”
I remember a story…
One day, the entire adult population of an idyllic world awakes with a shared vision of a unknown disaster about to end their civilization. After long consultations with the mystic elders, they all agree on the truth of this vision and are resigned to their fate. That night one couple, wishing to spare their children this horror, kill them painlessly in their sleep. The next morning, they awake to an intact world, but find that all the parents in their world have done exactly the same. Vision fulfilled.
May David Buckel lie in peace.
Paul,
I’m sure you are thinking of “The Illustrated Man” by Ray Bradbury.
Really good film adaptation too with Rod Steiger.
Willis if the Gerbil survived he might disagree with you.
I can think of dozens of totally tasteless and cruel comments, but can’t do it. I feel sad for his family and friends, such a waste of life.
Absolutely. A horrible situation for the people who remain so far.
It is clear that climate anxiety will kill more people, and that is because the mainstream media following the zeitgeist causes it. The West will sink, not because pollution or warming, but because it has driven into a cultural dead end.
“I feel sad for his family and friends, such a waste of life.”
I agree.
“The West will sink, not because pollution or warming, but because it has driven into a cultural dead end.”
I agree, though I think that Cultural Madness describes the direction we are headed better than a cultural dead end. This poor man may be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
I wonder if he bought carbon credits to offset the co2 he produced burning himself?
Ralph
April 14, 2018 at 4:45 pm
I don’t think we need to make fun of this. It’s such a sad story. Obviously this man had a lot of things going on in his head and probably just needed to seek out professional help to aviod this tragedy. Condolences to his family and friends.
The guy was CUCKOO for Cocoa Puffs. Most liberals are. The earth is dying???? Get a grip.
While “professional help” might work, there is no panacea for dealing with suicidal people. People who cannot cope will eventually kill themselves. That’s the reality of it. Not everyone can deal with life and no therapy or drug can change that. I’m not criticizing or blaming these people—it’s just the reality of life. Not everyone can make it work. Therapy and meds are worth a try, but it may or may not “avoid the tragedy.”
Look at his dating life. He was lonely on top of which the Left fed him constant gloom and doom.
The Left & LGBT in particular fed him a lie.
Condolences to family and friends that were NOT part of the echo chamber of horrors that continuously nudged him toward the edge.
Screw those that were part of the echo chamber (don’t matter if they are family/friends or not).
snap! that was my first thought.
the second was why not a quiet OD and crawl into one of his compost piles for an eco friendly ending..
once i was very ill and did warn my girlfriemnds if they found my coat covering the worm bin, Id taken care of my funeral..pre planned as it were;-) and just leave it alone for a few weeks please.
Tasteless comment.
Wait, maybe if he’d hooked himself up it an inverter, connected to capacitors, which are charged by a solar panel, waiting to go off like a portable defibrillator… That he could have renewably offed himself having died of exposure, or maybe thirst…………. Would ya buy hunger?…
Composting would have been a lot less painful but slow.
he was already there by the time he got his degree in stupid
Or lay down under a huge magnifying lens, after drinking a gallon of corn liquor.
YOU just HUSH yer Mouth!! DONT chew give them dang Libberuls ideas to be a-wastin good Corn Squeezins now Dang you!
The sad part is that he died under a false pretext., saying “he was burning himself to death using “fossil fuel” to reflect how mankind was likewise killing itself”.
In reality. global population is increasing at a rate which is faster than at any time in the past. Food production is at a record high and global poverty is at an all time low. A warmer world is a better world.
The real cause of his death is fake left-wing propaganda.
I think the real cause of his death was mental illness.
The man had no grasp of reality, blaming imaginary boogie men for the sky falling is never a path to enlightenment.
Sadly it is what religious zealots do.
“I think the real cause of his death was mental illness.”
I think the real cause of his death are all the lies and distortions of the truth the Climate Change Charlatans have foisted on an unsuspecting public over the years, making them think the world is coming to an end because of CO2 emissions. This guy believed their lies so much he felt he had only one option: to kill himself.
Reg, if mental illness was the cause, it seems to have similarly affected a substantial part of the population of Western (and some small third world) countries. This is gonna take a looong time to fix, unless some far greater and more obvious crisis happens – like a serious recession that focuses the collective mind of our politicians on our real problems.
Agreed.
Nor is his alleged choice of death sensible on any level except as a typical suicide.
This character apparently lived and worked in NYC. It is doubtful that his life was carbon free except at a minimal level; i.e. a virtue signal level.
Actually blaming fossil fuel, when one’s life is surrounded and supported by fossil fuels is irrational. Especially after the winter NYC enjoyed this past year.
I do note that he chose a warm spring day, instead of the many very cold spring days just past.
Viewed as a totality, unfortunately, this was a typical suicide.
Why would this matter?
Because, there is zero evidence that a “fossil fuel” event triggered his terminal depression.
The big question is what was the triggering event or events?
Even if this character is trying to make his suicide count for something about which he appears to have a religious belief, other dark events triggered his decision to end his life.
May his tortured soul find the rest and solace he needs.
Reg: I agree. The man had so many problems living inside his cranium that he finally just popped.
It isn’t warmer where I live
Rain, sleet and snow where I live and I can’t put out bird food until the precip stops.
12-14″ on the ground here. Average high is 58F….we may get 30F today if we are lucky. The month to date is about -15 below the ‘average’. Historic on all counts. I am at MSP. We are at our snowiest April ever….approx 22″ to date. We average 2.5″ of usually wet snow in April. We have not been above 52F yet this entire spring. It is causing me to be very down. I don’t get SAD in the winter due to lack of light, but in spring when I am expecting much nicer conditions this kind of weather causes me to be very irritable. We are hoping for our first 60F late next weekend and then hopefully sustained warmth beyond that…long range means are more favorable then…let’s hope so.
Sorry. It is already globally cooling.
Yeah, ‘cooling’ negative 0.15K/decade? Or did you refer to just the last four weeks?
Please come back after 15 years of cooling UAH TLT. In the meantime, meeting 1.5K total global warming for a 30 year period is still very, very much in future. I love to see the pause back, but it appears we get more lukewarm weather instead.
Hugs
There is no man made global warming. I am not sure why you believe strongly in UAH since they have noted problems with the orbits and the sensors are affected by the sun’s rays which are terrible during the [current] period of the lowest magnetic field strengths in about 87 years.
As far as the other data sets are concerned: they are all biased towards the NH. Not properly balanced to zero latitude like my sample of 54 weather stations.
It is globally cooling. By at least 0.01K per annum since 2000.
Here is a summary of my investigation on that:
Concerned to show that man made warming (AGW ) is correct and indeed happening, I thought that here [in Pretoria, South Africa} I could easily prove that. Namely the logic following from AGW theory is that more CO2 would trap heat on earth, hence we should find minimum temperature (T) rising pushing up the mean T. Here, in the winter months, we hardly have any rain but we have many people burning fossil fuels to keep warm at night. On any particular cold winter’s day that results in the town area being covered with a greyish layer of air, viewable on a high hill outside town in the early morning.
I figured that as the population increased over the past 40 years, the results of my analysis of the data [of a Pretoria weather station] must show minimum T rising, particularly in the winter months. Much to my surprise I found that the opposite was happening: minimum T here was falling, any month….I first thought that somebody must have made a mistake: the extra CO2 was cooling the atmosphere, ‘not warming’ it. As a chemist, that made sense to me as I knew that whilst there were absorptions of CO2 in the area of the spectrum where earth emits, there are also the areas of absorption in the 1-2 um and the 4-5 um range where the sun emits. Not convinced either way by my deliberations and discussions as on a number of websites, I first looked at a number of weather stations around me, to give me an indication of what was happening:
The results puzzled me even more. Somebody [God/Nature] was throwing a ball at me…..The speed of cooling followed a certain pattern, best described by a quadratic function.
I carefully looked at my earth globe and decided on a particular sampling procedure to find out what, if any, the global result would be. Here is my final result on that:
Hence, looking at my final Rsquare on that, I figured out that there is no AGW, at least not measurable.
Bingo.
Public funded propaganda, pretending to be ‘science’, and a supine media that’s fully complicit in enabling an ongoing global crime of misleading the young and impressionable into mental anguish, ignorance, poor education, stupid attitudes and acts, and much depression and misery, under the FAKE guise of informing and enlightening.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Agenda 21 anybody?
Bingoid. Murder by propaganda. But those Warmists that caused his death DON’T CARE! The only thing they care about is converting the world to their insane Socialist hell.
Absolutely. All the global data shows that mankind is better fed, more prosperous and longer living than ever before. And the planet is getting greener due to increased CO2 and global warming.
This is the ultimate madness. People who call themselves green demonise and hate the very thing that makes the planet green. Sadly this madness can literally drive people to their deaths.
Chris
Will those who continue to create mental stress with their false catastrophic warming propaganda ever be brought before the court to account for their part in this type of tragic death?
Leave it to me to definitely have something to say….
This falls squarely on the laps of all these hysterical liberals, lying so called scientists, news media, etc…
….this is the result they have been looking for…..and they don’t even care
And the left will say it’s Trump’s fault because he’s dismantling the EPA.
mikerestin – don’t forget that Trump dumped the Paris Accord non-treaty!
Hit the nail squarely on the first go. +10
Rubbish comment.
First we had the Peta Facebook shooter in Calif. and now this. I think the climate psychologists need to do some good here and stop feeding the psychosis.
Youtube, not Facebook. And had nothing to do with animal issues…it was over revenue and what she saw as Youtube deliberately limiting her viewership.
mr mike- that’s what she said but the real reason was she was psycho
and this flaming [lawyer] who just offed himself was a liar to the end – he didn’t do it for the erf. he did it cuz he had inverted values = psycho.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanterre_massacre
Need anymore evidence Liberalism and mental illness go hand in hand?
Climate change fanaticism is clearly a retreat from rationality.
A Chicken or the Egg problem is the only question.
“Liberalism is a mental disorder.” Michael Savage
Q.E.D.
IMO, just proves how mentally unbalanced he was, on multiple counts.
Survival of the fittest.
The ultimate hypocrisy ….. contributing to AGW.
My thought exactly. Not PC, but true. Couldn’t even stick to his beliefs in death/suicide. I feel sorry for those that will miss him.
This was not a protest. It was self-hatred. It’s actually very difficult for many – if not most – people to love themselves. One has to be at peace with oneself.
Raise your children well. They are our successors in Nature’s grand experiment in bringing forth a being that recognizes the existence of Nature itself. Love your children, and let them love themselves.
Amen
I’m in love with myself.
I don’t know, seems to me I loved myself a lot, especially in high school.
And now you need eye glasses?????
you can’t love yourself without a reason. that’s something one achieves by achieving one’s values
he just had stupid as his standard of value.
he arrived at the ineluctable conclusion.
it’s all good.
gnomish, it would be more appropriate to say that his view was so narrow and so blocked in that he could NOT see the other side of the coin.
Suicide is NOT the answer to anything.
However when the emotional pain is so high that you can’t bear it anymore, it sure does seem that way.
yes, sara. any rational person understands and agrees with you in any normal context.
the agw cult is not a normal context by any stretch of the imagination but until it leaves corpses strewn on the pavement, those who are too innocently generous to grasp the fact that fabian socialism is loathing of human nature and is an engine of self mutilation and suicide on the installment plan.
so good on crispy mcCritter for showing the station at the end of the line. will it wake anybody up?
if it doesn’t, then let the fries hit the floor. the more the merrier and the sooner the better.
those are the monstrosities that threaten every human bean. they are not to be hugged. they are evil.
do you so love life that you will, in equal measure, hate evil? cuz if you can’t bring yourself to do that, your anguish is self indulgence and pretty much coddles the cooters like all the other enablers.
The will to live is powerful. Even when overcome by a suicidal urge, it reasserts itself quickly. A delay, a distraction, an inconvenience, an interruption, any of these can move the individual past that window of impulse and get them thinking “Wait a minute, WTF am I doing?”.
Unfortunately, for some that interruption never comes.
What worries me the most on this is that it WON’T be the last time one of the Climate Faithful chooses to end their life rather then face the world they believe is coming. Many (even Most) of them truly believe that civilization or even the biosphere itself is doomed unless mankind as a whole ‘Decarbonizes’, and as most of us here know that just isn’t possible. As one attempt after another to implement their beliefs fails, they will become more and more depressed.
We WILL see more of the Climate Faithful choosing suicide. We will probably see some choosing to take their families with them. We may even eventually see something akin to Jonestown. In the end it will depend on how much longer their leaders choose to continue pushing them and lying to them.
~¿~
When ideology leads to self destructive dehumanizing madness, it is probably time to question the ideology.
Also true in other areas of life.
Absolutely correct. The ideology IS being questioned, by the rest of us, but someone like this is too blocked by it to even try to question it.
What difference between being blinded by the light and being in the dark?
He did what he chose to do. I hope I get to choose the way I go.
If I have a choice, I’d rather not go.
A sad event in any terms but this guy just seems to epitomise the psychotic take on carbon/CO2 that people like him have. I mean on a planet where ALL life is carbon based and atmospheric CO2 is the primary vector for the creation of said life, WTF is this obscene and utter hatred of carbon/CO2 all about?
Sad, sad stuff.
+100
Oh … oh… oh… Weeping…
To God, all that ultimately, really, mattered was that David was a soul in need of love. A soul that God loved, dearly. No, that God loveS dearly.**
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.3934027.1523734475!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_750/article-park3-0414.jpg
David Buckell, human being.
Why
(youtube – Rascal Flatts)
WHY???
Oh, why…
The pain just got too great.
That — is why.
With nothing but deepest sympathy for all of Mr. Buckell’s family, for all of his friends… so many friends… You could not have done ANYTHING to prevent this. Weep, be angry, but don’t — feel — guilty. The pain just got too great. That’s all.
With love, only love — and tears,
Janice
******************
******************
** I believe in retroactive prayer (yes, I realize that some of you do not believe in prayer at all; this is MY remembrance comment), thus, I prayed just now that God, knowing in advance that I would pray this today, would have made sure that David Buckell believed in Jeshua as his Messiah at some point in his life (even if only after losing consciousness today, accepting the message spoken to him by Jesus in his mind before it was too late to choose). And this may have been futile, but, I am choosing to believe it was not and that David is, right now, in heaven. At peace.
Wonderful song, no explanation, just the truth about life.
Please forgive my misspelling of “Buckel” — tears make it harder to read …
One more thing, from the lyrics to above song, “Why?” — “They lied.” And that makes me angry. The same lie about human CO2 that caused (but — for — the — requirement of UN-necessary cladding (only there to prevent concrete from emitting CO2 per the lies of the AGWers), most if not all of those people would be alive today) the Grenfell Towers burning deaths of dozens of human beings, killed an emotionally fragile human being.
In Tort law, the “eggshell plaintiff” principle says that the tortfeasor (here, the liars about human CO2) takes his or her victim as he or she finds him or her. The AGWists are guilty of wrongful death. That is, the emotional fragility of Mr. Buckel was not a supervening, controlling, cause preventing their liability.
Angry. Weeping. … just weeping…
Janice,
I’m not religious, but if I were David, I would thank you for that.
Whatever this man’s torment, I suspect he would have found one cause, or another to die for.
He was a human being and deserves respect.
We might brand him mentally ill, but we didn’t know him, so can’t make that assessment. We can only hope that death released him from his torment, for he was tormented enough to kill himself in this way.
My thoughts go out to his family, of course, but also to the people who found him, and the emergency services he selfishly subjected to the most gruesome task imaginable.
We often forget the public servants who must clear up after these people. They are affected as well, but few think of them, least of all the perpetrators.
He may not have had a depressive motivation. He may have had a martyr complex, seeking popularity or immortality as a an extreme example who died for ‘the cause’. Maybe he was thinking of the Buddhist monks who self-immolated to protest the war in Vietnam. I see a parallel.
All he proved is that men are mortal. We only get one chance. His has ended. What struggle he failed to overcome in this life, he will face in the next. For anyone considering suicide now or in the future, I recommend first reading or watching, “Life after Life”.
Another book which has been helpful to many was written by a quadraplegic (Joni Eareckson Tada) who wanted to kill herself at one point, When Is It Right to Die?: https://www.amazon.com/When-Right-Die-Euthanasia-Suffering/dp/0756786894#customerReviews
Yes, a portion of blame & shame belong to the climate change scare mongers — especially those who know that such hype is not true. To those who believe that climate hype is true — please move on — none of us want to dwell on this and make any kind of self-sacrificing hero out of Mr. Buckel. It would only encourage a rash of such protests. (During the 1960s there were many self-immolations protesting the Vietnam War.)
It could have been worse. There could have been a few more.
Sadly, this helps again to point out that many people are getting their brains pulled into a cult. Like the Hart family tragedy, with the adoptive parents being so goofed up that all parents and kids end up dead, unless the final couple of individuals happen to be found alive somewhere.
This is not mental illness. Please avoid saying that. It is a disservice to people with a mental illness, or with suicidality.
Find time to go look up how a cult works Most importantly, the process by which someone gets sucked into cult thinking – not so much the “characteristics” of cult thinking.
The appeal of a cult is dual: to be following the correct life, and to be virtuous as opposed to being ignorant or being evil.
Cults work by a certain process. In all of this, I have no idea how a cult gets dreamed up. i have no idea what possesses any individual to dream up a cult, either as a True Believer, or as a Deceiver. I will note how INTELLIGENT, NON-MENTALLY-ILL individuals get drawn into a cult.
This is based on my efforts to understand how so many of my intelligent friends and family have embraced the most ridiculous political ideas, AND how they CANNOT have reasonable, cool-headed discussions of political issues.
A cult has an appeal by pointing out some idea or problem, and making the potential member consider the issue – but this apparently dispassionate issue is actually presented in a manner that will lead to favoring one side. “You are against harming wildlife, aren’t you?”
The subtle but necessary subtext comes next. The people doing the “bad” thing or things are either ignorant or evil. Capitalism is bad, polluters are bad, Big Oil is bad, SUV owners are bad, etc.
The rhetoric progresses to include a MORAL evaluation: it is not just dumb that you wasted fossil fuel with your SUV, it was somehow immoral: you were killing off the planet, hurting Gaia, ruining the legacy for future generations, etc. I call this the “virtue” aspect.
We mostly think of cults as being centered around God / gods / divine revelation / great spiritual insight and practice.
But I want to ASK you all to consider: the matter of a cult is the matter of being virtuous versus being ignorant or evil. This can include being virtuous by following a religion, or also by following some tenets of virtue, without a God attached to the virtuousness.This expanded concept includes religious cults, such as Jim Jones, Vernon Howell, and Joseph Smith, but also includes the atheist naturalists, members of the Cult of Man-made Global Warming, etc.
In the long run, dispute and shades of grey disappear, and the promoted view is framed as the obvious, virtuous view, and holders of other views (lukewarmers, etc.) are framed as either ignorant or evil.
In the long run: since the opponent is IMMORAL, the believers, the virtuous, are not “ethically” required to engage in civil debate, to tolerate diverse views, etc. This would be like a Christian church having a meeting to decide if Satanist principles should be added to the Creed in order to be more inclusive. [More later on why Christianity, specifically, is not a cult.]
The process is that you first consider, and accept, some “obvious” things. CO2 is increasing, etc. Then, a subtle process advances. Two main things: the “virtue” issue has to cover a great deal of daily life, so that you get increasingly cut off from other aspects of daily life, and opponents get increasingly framed as distinctly woefully ignorant (often due to the promotion of evil ideas by the Evil Guys), or simply as evil.
It has been close to a decade, but some may remember the flare-up of concern over “phantom” power consumption: that LED light on your Keurig that notes that it is plugged in? EVIL!!!!!! –So, the label of evil gets promoted to cover more and more. Pretty soon you cannot take a s#1t without worrying about how your dung is harming Mother Earth. And, feeling guilty and deciding you would s#1t less if Consumerism did not drive you to eat so much. These virtue-concepts advance on you, and you increasingly see your behaviors, and those of others, as ignorant and or evil. As you grow in Virtue, you shift away from the evil behaviors and thoughts.
At the same time, a lifestyle of Virtue gets advanced. Buy “green,” etc. You can relieve guilt of your evil ways by following the Virtuous lifestyle. Buy a Subaru because their plant is zero-emissions.
The final crucial aspect is this: A cult controls you by getting you to buy in to a World View, but it is an inaccurate World View. It can be shown to be inaccurate to reasonable people by logic and reason.
So, another crucial aspect of the cult is this: there must be mental detours to the obvious reasoning that makes the cult look as foolish as it is – since it is not in accord with reality.
There are two main cognitive tricks that are promoted and parroted to the increasingly duped cult members: name-calling and change-the-topic. They simply are what they say.
If someone counters the AGW idea with some genuine data, you do not have to dispute it; instead, you paint the person presenting the information as “funded by Big Oil,” or an “acolyte of Fox News.” IOW, you do name-calling. Once the reasonable person, who will bust a hole in your world view, is discounted as being a bad or evil person, you DO NOT HAVE TO ENTERTAIN THEIR POINT OF VIEW. This is NECESSARY for a cult to survive.
Also, Change-The-Topic. If someone brings up a point such as “solar cannot possibly handle more than 10% of a nation’s energy need,” the topic GETS CHANGED TO: “Kyoto – we need to reduce demand,” or “Big Oil is subsidized so solar doesn’t have an economic chance,” or “in some cases, we will also depend on wind,” etc.
The “tell” for “change-the-topic” is this: two things: 1. you never get back to your valid point; 2. as you try, you get labeled as being dogmatic, or as being unable to expand a discussion, etc.
Finally, and this has happened to me, and to you all, and to many: once the cult member gets challenged, and gets feet held to the fire, they create a huge emotional tantrum, and fly off in a huff – all the while labelling you as the unreasonable, emotional one. And, no shame: they are merely exiting a discussion with an Evil person.
These cult members CANNOT engage beyond a second round of serious, reasonable discussion on their Cult View.
In may forums, I have PREDICTED exactly when someone will dis-engage form debate, and how. They deny this, and then it occurs, like clockwork. Because a cult world view cannot stand a challenge. Because it does not accord with reality. Why engage? Why predict where the debate will go? I at times also state this: because others are reading the interchange, and can thus become aware of how the rhetoric works.
This guy was a cult member. He guilted himself so far as to lead him to kill himself. Sad. But not mental illness, or just being unintelligent. He suffered from something that sane, intelligent people can get drawn into: a cult.
Why are we told that cults can only be religious? We are told this in our schools so that we don’t catch on: the environmentalist extremists are in a cult. A virtue cult.
[Bonus: why is Christianity not a cult? This would take more explanation to really lay out, but basically a cult CANNOT have you examining its tenets, or questioning authority. In my church, we have The Bible, and leadership, but NO AUTHORITY. You either investigate, explore, ask questions, and accept Jesus ON YOUR OWN TERMS, or you don’t , and we pray that you will, one day. We do not require you to attend church, to tithe, to listen to any preaching, etc. We invite you to learn yourself, with good instructors, and reflect on what you are hearing. IOW: we are very much an open system, regarding our substantiation of our beliefs. We DO have a clear set of beliefs – you cannot change them much, and still claim to be a “Christian.” But, you can – there is no one who will run you down or sue you. Because it is an open deal. We are not afraid of difficult questions or of skeptics. In my church, and among the many Christians I know, there are many who have gone on to teach themselves how to read Hebrew so they CAN investigate scripture on their own. There are those who have gone on to study Egyptology, or Ancient Near East history so they can explore and figure things out; it is NOT a closed system, where dissent cannot be tolerated. How are we like a cult? We have a definite world view, and we believe there is good, and evil, and ignorant. And, we believe in educating others – but not in the way a cult does. And, if a “Christian” adopts Christianity along the lines of this cult process, their life experiences will not go well, and they will fall off the wagon, eventually – i.e., if family simply urges “believe, or be evil.”]
TheLastDemocrat
Well-written. Thank you.
Is this your blog, LastDemocrat?
Why so quiet for so long, when you write so well?
Hi – Thanks, Dave. I have a lot of skills and abilities, but operating a blog is not one of them. I tried, but could not figure out how to get menus, shortcuts, etc.
Also, I know I reach a much bigger audience by judiciously dropping relevant comments on sites like WUWT, where many readers will take in the bit of information, judiciously, along with the opinions of all of the other two-bit arm-chair Monday-morning-quarterback know-it-alls.
”… once the cult member gets challenged, and gets feet held to the fire, they create a huge emotional tantrum, and fly off in a huff – all the while labelling you as the unreasonable, emotional one.”
Flight from rationality that impairs personal relations that otherwise should matter. A mental illness symptom.
Good analysis, Last Democrat but IMHO you miss the point of the cult. Cults are started, organized and led by men, they have to be charismatic to suck people in, and their ultimate purpose is that they, the leader(s) get to boff all the chicks (I’m not trying to be humorous BTW, this is a serious observation). Any religious content is window dressing.
In that sense, AGW is not a cult, or yes it is a sort of cult but without the charismatic leaders (charisma is not a word that comes to mind when looking at Mann, Gore, Lewandowsky etc.). It feeds on guilt, it promotes guilt, as all the best religions do, and it provides a source for the guilt that some people seem to need and in the post judaeo-christian world there’s critical shortage of guilt, or rather there’s a lot of guilt looking for a place to park itself. AGW gives the true believer all kinds of good things to be guilty about, and those who really, REALLY need guilt, they can wallow in it until they hate themselves for just being alive. Without knowing a thing about poor David Buckel, I can speculate that he was one of these.
I seem to recall that self-immolation was common among buddhist priests in Viet Nam in the 1960s, protesting against the US presence there. I hope it doesn’t catch on among the warmists.
Smart Rock: Just for the record, the buddhist priests in Viet Nam who immolated themselves were coked to the gills on opium. Imitators in the US were not told this and unnecessarily died horrible deaths as a result.
Sure seems like the actions of someone mentally-ill.
Cult…of one? Unless this becomes a regular happening, it is just one sick individual.
Excellent comment.
Very nice comment.
Waste of perfectly good fossil fuel if you ask me…
Are you suggesting he should have bought a gigantic magnifying glass and left the sun to do its work.
Yes, Let the climate cultists climb up on top of the Ivanpah central tower at noon in June.
0x01010101 is correct.
The suicider chose a flashy horribly painful exit method.
A very risky suicide method, to boot!
Any alert passerby with a fire extinguisher could have ended the flames, saved his life and left him painfully maimed for life.
Passerby’s do not even need a fire extinguisher; wrapping the victim in a coat and rolling them can extinguish the flames.
Choosing a flashy method, may be to make a statement; but the flashy method isn’t convincing when the suicide victim claims everyone allegedly will suffer the same fate.
There is a gulf of difference between self immolating and enduring a few degree temperature increase sometime in the future.
Why the flashy exit, then? Some final fifteen minutes of fame? Maybe.
Perhaps it was emulating self immolating monks?
I suspect the flames were a message to someone(s) specific.
We may never know if there was some family member, employer or lover involved in this suicide.
The sheer pain of burning alive could be a martyr complex; where the suicide victim insists on a very painful self punishment. Again, a maybe.
A far more efficient and effective method would have used car exhaust; or virtually any undiluted fossil fuel engine exhaust.
More effective, quieter, very efficient and without the risk that someone would put the fire out, leaving an almost suicide victim in painful burn treatment traction for months.
Car exhaust would not endanger nearby people, trees, pets and waterways (floating gasoline)
Cold
One has to wonder how prevelent suicide over climate change is. (or, for that matter, people killing themselves because they’re sick and tired of climate change alarmism) It’s difficult to believe that this sort of thing is an isolated case…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254619/Baby-girl-survives-shot-chest-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html
Fffkt! What an outcome from all the public climate p0m and panic. The greens should stop now the immoral raising of hatred and self-hatred.
I don’t remember seeing this case documented. Partly it is good, since suicides are copycatted, but partly it is so wrong since greens should be told what they cause to weaker people.
IIRC, there have been other warmist suicides and suicide attempts in the past.—maybe half a dozen.
I don’t know any, but I have read of people who have decided not to have children because of what they believe regarding climate change.
A form of cultural suicide.
On the old show, “All in the Family,” season 5, show 7, “Gloria’s Shock,” the Bunkers’ daughter, Gloria, and her husband, Mike “Meathead,” have conflict because she wants to have kids, and Mike, the progressive character, does not want to drag another human being into this polluted planet.
Rant at 12 minutes –
Sadly, this is the outcome and/or genesis of the “sky is falling” syndrome. Regardless of your view of Glabal Warming, the view of humanity is one of life and survival. Whether the planet warms or cools, humanity is not killing itself and the rhetoric that one side or the other is causing death or desiring it is a big problem with the debate.
Too much cool aid,like Jim Jones followers. There will be more.
John Anthony …. Bring ’em on!
“How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened!”
– Thos. Jefferson, 1816
Lies kill. David Buckel’s blood is on the hands of everyone who has hyped the climate scare beyond what the evidence warrants.
Mark Baumer is also dead because of the Climate Warriors’ lies. He died, not intentionally, but because he took risks with his life, on a fool’s errand, to “raise awareness of climate change.”
Eight year old Friday Mukamperezida also died because of those same lies. He was sick in bed when when his home was burned down to make room for a carbon offset tree plantation in Uganda.
Worse yet was the case of Francisco Lotero & Miriam Coletti. They shot themselves and their children, because of their despair over global warming, because they believed the alarmists’ apocalyptic lies. Miraculously, one of their children survived.
Climate alarmism and “climate mitigation” killed those people, and are killing many others, but a lot of radicalized Climate Warriors just don’t care very much. They think of humanity as a blight on the planet, and wish that a large percentage of the Earth’s population would just die and “reduce the surplus population,” anyhow. For example, here’s the first comment on an article at The Independent Online (UK), by one of those Climate Warriors:
http://sealevel.info/climate_activist_misanthropy_01.png
Ironically, “climate mitigation” is also doing immense environmental damage. For instance, the United States now has about 50 million acres devoted to growing Roundup-Ready monoculture corn for producing “renewable energy” (ethanol), to “mitigate climate change.” That’s more than the entire land area of the nine (9) smallest States in the United States, combined. It is an environmental disaster — caused, not by climate change, but by ill-considered efforts to mitigate climate change.
Worse even than the individual and environmental tragedies is the human toll when tens of thousands of people are made destitute because “climate friendly” and “renewable energy” policies turn their homes and gardens into monoculture palm oil plantations for making biofuels. Some of those people do not survive.
The same is true of people whose food is priced beyond their means to pay, because ever-increasing portions of the world’s grain and edible oils are being burned as fuel, to meet renewable energy goals. Even in relatively prosperous Europe the human cost of climate alarmism is heavy. Thousands there are dying because they can’t afford to pay the very high prices of “renewable” energy, to heat their homes:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fuel-poverty-killed-15000-people-last-winter-10217215.html
Here’s a German article, google-translated to rough English:
http://www.sealevel.info/Energie_Die_grosse_Stromluge_Warum_Strom_zum_Luxus_wird-FOCUS_Online-Google_translated.html
Translated title:
“‘The big current lie’: Why electricity becomes luxury”
Excerpt:
Some people “get it,” though. The Climategate whistleblower was one of them. He (or she) was motivated by his understanding of the tragic cost of climate lies. He wrote:
daveburton
Excellent post – thank you.