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”
My sincere condolences to the family and friends of this poor, sad man.
These days, I’m happy when a suicide involves only the death of the one person who wants to die, and the victim doesn’t feel the faddish need to make a name by taking other, innocent people with him. There have been so many mass shootings, terrorist bombings, truck attacks and knifings where the suicide is secondary and the killing of as many innocents as possible is primary. Motivations for a high body count vary, of course, but an extra body count of 0 is always good. So on that score, good for him and his discretion. There is at least some dignity there. If that sounds harsh to people’s ears, I’m sorry, but it needs to be said. We should try to celebrate the discretion and “restraint” of solo suicides, IMO, so that this private, solo, individual example, horrible though it may be, might be emulated over other examples where innocents are also killed.
Best regards to his family and friends; this is surely a hard thing for them.
Fossil fuels are the greatest boon to mankind’s history. We now have the highest standard of living the world has ever known. Even many poor people today live in better conditions than past Kings and Queens – think on-call heating and air conditioning, electricity, and modern conveniences, like refrigeration, that we take for granted. Fossil fuels helped the Allies defeat the Axis partners in WWII, and now fossil fuels continue to provide energy, plastics, and other materials and benefits for advancements in medicine and technology, and standards of living. Praise God (of the Bible) for His provision.
This tragedy is 100% the responsibility of the purveyors of the propaganda that produced it.
If he was truly mentally ill, he would have found a cause to die for eventually.
Climate Change is currently the most fadish.
This is “one” possible solution, but I don’t recommend it
One down, how many million to go.
Sad but better that he took his own life rather than killing others in the name of his ideology. Frankly, given the rhetoric of the CAGW fanatics, I’m amazed that someone hasn’t been assassinated to “save the world from CO2”.
The Unabomber assassinated some folks.
True, though I was thinking more along the lines of an assassination of a well known skeptic who is a public figure. I won’t mention names since I’m not about to give anyone a target.
How many millions have they starved to death by forcing up the price of grain with their bio-fuel crap, not to mention the ban on DDT and malaria.
I love it when greenies say DDT was NOT banned. Right, I go and buy some, then, as it was not banned, right? The ban, which is real, caused real deaths which greenies never admit. Slimebags.
Very sad that anyone’s mind can be disturbed that much by hype that it should literally result in a death cult. : (
Because this is a climate blog, and he specified his demise was due to “fossil fuels”, everyone here is far too invested and focused on the wrong thing. The fact is, ALL Darwin Award winners are tragic characters, with the cast ranging from incompetently stupid, invoking hilarity, to mentally ill, invoking more humane responses.
All Greens such as him are to various degrees mentally ill. My condolences to his family, whom I suspect are not that surprised.
Agreed Bob, that was my first thought too, he was particularly vulnerable to obsession and overloading and over-reacting to doomer bunk and greenie drivel. However, pointing out why he became so fatalistic through greenie over-concern, may assist others to steer clear of the extremes of the climate-change neurosis. Genuine Darwin-Award people will always die due to dumb choices, though. Do people like this guy fantasise obsessively that their feeble idiotic act of ‘martyrdom’ will trigger global change and bestow iconic ‘hero’ status?
Yup.
Will it?
Nope.
He’lll be plowed-in and totally forgotten—no problem at all.
Unless he wins a Darwin-Award …
the Martyr thing WILL get airtime..
wait just a tiny while for the warmists to begin their “he cared so much etc etc ” campaigns..and fundraise using him as the excuse
I would make sure, that he wasn’t murdered.
Many times it is impossible to discuss things with people today or perhaps it has been forever. Very often any reasoned explanation given to another results in a salvo of memorized (or brainwashed) dogma. Rather than an intelligent exchange of ideas it seems to be perfectly acceptable to attack another’s intelligence and repeat slogans rather than be troubled with actually listening to someone else’s opinions or what they suggest as facts. When groups of like minded individuals glom together and reinforce the same idea they become reduced to human lemmings where group pressure allows not even the slightest deviation from the group theology. This man obviously was an extreme example. He accepted the ‘green’ philosophy and convinced himself or was convinced by others that the world was ending and everything was hopeless because every human being didn’t believe as he did. He believed this so fervently that he felt he felt he was the problem and was willing to end his life. We look back on history and ask how so many millions could believe Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao or Al Gore but sadly it happens.
Clearly a sad and foolish move by him. We can at least thank him that he didn’t take his family with him, which happens all too often.
it’s surprising that someone so smart could be so taken in by a lie that is, to be honest, quite easy to see through. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he was so self-righteous, self-centred that he wouldn’t dare challenge even his own beliefs. A very sad outcome, and truly sad for his family and friends who now have to bear his burden.
I am saddened by this. I believe in the scientific method and the not post modern science. I hope that I would have helped to talk him round from this. Possibly not. Ouch for him and his.
I’ve never understood (and probably never will) how it is that setting yourself on fire, starving yourself, blocking an intersection, or just being a general nuisance, is supposed to get people to support your cause. How is being obnoxious, or just noxious productive in any way?
Darwin +1
He showed us.
Darwinism only works if the selection is done before reproduction for an individual that was likely to reproduce. It is not the survival of the fittest, as usually told, but the reproduction of the fittest. Darwin was poorly understood. Once an individual has finished reproducing and is no longer required for his progeny survival, or has chosen not to reproduce, there is no natural selection involved. His life or death becomes irrelevant for his species evolution. That’s one of the reasons we don’t live longer. There is no reproductive advantage from living longer.
Hey, I’m 73 and can still get the leg over.
You are assuming of course that he wouldn’t have reproduced again at some point.
Oops, soz Ve,
You beat me by seconds….. You ARE vigorous chap!!!
Well then… Lamarck +1
They first convinced many smart, healthy people not to have kids. That was unfortunate, but ok, their choice. Self limiting perhaps, as there will likely be less liberals in the next generation, but still ok. The next step is actually proposing that people euthanize themselves to save the planet. If society is ok with that, I hope that they will make it less painful and messy for the people who want to go. Personally I am against it, but I see this as the next logical step of their crusade.
This case is truly tragic, and those who promote the idea of CAGW as a crisis should be forced to experience a true crisis. It is a rich, self-important, first world crisis that does not compare in any way to every true human crisis that we see everyday. Logic and rationality are lost and replaced with crazy, irrational drama. So sad.
Well they’re the sane and normal ones! We who do not believe are the extremist reactionary radicals you know!
You know usually those that believe in the 97% like to do things in large groups.
Koolaide?
wow, he’d have left two carbon footprints…
As I recall, a court just found a young lady guilty in a trial where she encouraged her boyfriend to commit suicide. …… may be time for the mentally ill leftist driving this CAGW drivel to answer some questions about the effects their lies and propaganda are having on people.
Seems to me there is no question that the Alarmist are complicit in this poor fellows unfortunate, and untimely death.
Maybe it is time for the sociologists and psychologists to study the effect of doom and gloom environmentalism on the attitudes of young people. There may well be an association between fatalism and drug use, gang membership and the lack of personal responsibility. Too much free stuff allows survival, but may lead to lack of personal worth. The opioid epidemic, legalizing weed and ease of groupthink all could be involved. The old justification was “here for a good time, not a long time”.
Did he follow the words in the WUWT sidebar?
“Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about what they call you.”
Geoff
36.000 people in the UK died in 2016/2017 winter conditions because they can’t afford the fuel to keep warm. Even a labor MP admits to that: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/13/liberal-mp-says-people-will-die-of-cold-because-renewable-energy-drives-up-fuel-prices
Frankly I no longer feel a wit of sympathy and someone should sue his estate and donate the money to what ever organization helps the people who can no longer afford their heating bills because the EU’s version of democrats want to ruin the landscape with their stupid windmills. Good riddance is my thought.
Just as people have become addicted to dopamine reward pathway stimulation from daily social media usage, people have become addicted to dopamine reward pathway stimulation from daily selective moral outrage.
This addict died from an overdose.
Into The Fire
by Thirteen Senses
(and fossil fuel)
+10
Most people that commit suicide either have a serious mental condition, or are in a very desperate situation, or both. As such the suicide note was probably a lie and the real cause was other. No doubt he wanted his death to be used politically to advance his anti-fossil fuel advocacy in a pathetic final gesture. It is pretty disturbing that people go to such extremes to defend their beliefs, and not too different from suicide bombers, except that more civilized and less damaging to others. If he really cared about CO2 levels he should have chosen a different method and requested to be buried instead of going up in flames.
“and requested to be buried instead of going up in flames.”
Actually, many people decide to not be buried and choose “going up in flames” instead. They just usually make sure they’re already dead.
I just can’t fathom what he thought he was doing. Perhaps he was thinking of the Buddhist monks immolating themselves in Viet Nam? Again, condolences to his family.
They shouldn’t if they believe atmospheric CO2 levels are a problem. Proper burial is the adequate carbon capture and storage (CCS) solution. I guess incineration prohibition might happen if this pesky CO2 keeps rising.
I’m not gonna bite. This is a set-up to elicit crass remarks from the opposition. Even IF it was an actual suicide, it points to the point that other opinions and logic not matter to these people.
You have to wonder why, if he was so ‘woke’ concerning CAGW, that he chose a way out with such a large carbon footprint.
As sad as it is it reeks of performance art.