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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Fossil fuel, or nuclear powered electricity would have been easier.
I gotta believe there was much more going on with him than just his CAGW beliefs.
IMO this should be taken as a warning . Shows how far some alarmists will go .
A short step away from murder . Beware those who use the ” D ” word …
We can conclude he was genuine, and not one of the climate hucksters. So, tricked by the unprincipled organisers of this fraud, he loses his life for no reason. More blood on their hands.
I think this is very, very sad. He was obviously a tormented soul who took his own life in a particularly distressing and painful way. We should add his death to the other 1000’s, possibly millions caused by the AGW myth. The money spent on foolish tidal projects, windmills etc could have supplied water to those who don’t have water and feeding those who do not have food. The high cost of renewable power and preventing cheap energy from shale gas being exploited has no doubt caused hypothermia in the elderly. Before I am accused of being charitable with other people’s money, that is not the case. If money is thrown away it should at least be thrown to relieve misery not as a vanity project for the Left leaning few based on dodgy “science”.
My sympathies will remain only with the 1st responders who were needlessly exposed to this event. They are exposed often enough to crash victims and victims of accidental fires, all of which accumulates through their lifetimes and can result in PTSD, similar to what military vets can suffer from.
Must say that I also suspect something else was going on in his life; maybe a deathly disease or -cancer. He probably thought that if he died [soon] due to a natural cause – or disease, his death would serve no purpose. Instead he decided to make himself a martyr for the big ’cause’ he believed in: to make people stop using fossil fuels.
Of course you all know that in IMHO there really is no man made warming due to the burning of fossil fuels; so, that is the real tragedy in this drama/
Unfortunately, according to the state of science, the problem is realistic. The last case in history when science was ignored by politics was Trofeo Gyenyiszovich Lisenko and Stalin’s case. Trump now.
Mihaly
please elaborate.
What was ignored in that case in history?
Perhaps they are referring to how Lysenko and Stalin used “science” to starve millions of people to death in the heart of CCCP’s most productive farm region?
This is not the first time an individual has committed suicide because of their angst over ‘the planet’
Usually it is a younger person under age 20 and usually they do it in a less gruesome manner but it is more common than you might think.
One step further: who is at fault for that feeling you rightfully describe as “angst”? We can name some of them easily: Alarmists, the Church of Climate and its High Priests, the IPCC, MSM and these pseudo-scientific contributors and quite a lot more. Be their attitude towards a changing climate right or -presumably- wrong: they managed to frighten and scare him to death. They deserve the IgNoble Prize.
The above alarmist individuals and organizations deserve to be bankrupted in a class action suit by the millions of innocent people who have suffered loss or damage due to their ongoing alarmist activity.
That is a class action suit I would happily sign on to! Even if the money does end up going to the lawyers.Bad language either directly or implied not allowed in WUWT MOD
I think eventually, the real tragedy of this horrific incidence will come about when natural drivers become the accepted reason for this small recent blip and will cause millions to so turn away from all conservatism that pollution will explode. People will come to realize they were duped. So in the end his death will result in the very thing he chose to died for because humanity will become jaded to all environmental voices and live in true destruction.
What an idiot. Good riddance. I have zero sympathy for a fool like this except for his poor relatives/family.
You never know, he might have been tormenting them, trying to get them to live the life gaia demands of them to live.
He wanted to protest humanity killing itself with the use of fossil fuels, but what he really did was highlight the insanity of the extreme green movement
Will we ever know the real reason he killed himself? Was he facing imminent bankruptcy? Been diagnosed with some fatal disease? Huge personal scandal of some type? Does anyone really care? It had nothing to do with climate, he would have had far more effect on that by remaining alive.
He sure did
I’ve heard of flaming gays, but this is rediculous
Well, there is his 15 minutes of flame
Just did a little web browsing. Found a tribute article which called him a: Community Composting Giant.
At least two words are now accurate.
It shows how strong the beliefs of some Global Warming believers are……
We really need some kind of assisted-suicide program in this country. That way people at-risk will actually have to get help, which could possibly save them or help them before they do something drastic.
When you are so low you don’t value your own life anymore, it becomes very easy not to value the life of others. That’s why we see so many mass shootings, murder-suicides and suicide by cop in this country.
I dont think any government program is a good solution to suicide. Most any that I have seen have the opposite effect in the end.
Even the act of committing suicide relied on fossil fuel, and the burning of the body introduced more CO2 into the atmosphere, as well as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, mercury, hydrogen fluoride (HF), hydrogen chloride (HCl), NMVOCs, and other heavy metals (I think).
This noble symbolic sacrifice, thus, is the ultimate hypocrisy.
… alarmism gone wildly awry.
Those polyethylene tarps, though amazingly inexpensive, are also quite useful.
I intend to protest the next ice age, but it won’t do any good.
How would one go about protesting the next ice age ? — by freezing your “ice” off ?
I see AGW mainly as an economic issue. I can’t help but wonder what might be achieved if the vast sums of money wasted on climate research were instead spent on mental health research to relieve the suffering of tortured souls like this poor man.
Everyone wishes events like this would not happen. It can become virtue signaling be commenting how sad this is. I believe a more effective way to minimize suicides is to ignore them. I don’t want other depressed people believing they will get a lot of sympathy for ending it all.
My uncle told a story about his bartender handling a depressed patron. The patron said something about shooting himself and the bartender said, “Wait right here, I have something for you.” He went to the back room, returned, and placed a 30-30 round on the bar saying, “Do it right and use this.” The guy got mad and left in a huff. No sympathy in that bar. The end result was the guy was upset at the derision, but it changed his depression into a little anger and he never did kill himself.
This was a man desperate for meaning, a warrior in his soul searching for a war in which to fight. His gay, transgender and green activism didn’t resolve anything, so his acts became, practically-speaking, meaningless. He wanted to be valuable and valued – ehich is why he didn’t burn himself with others watching – that would have been disreputable.
Or so I interpret.
Without meaning the everyday tedium, struggles and absurdities are overwhelming. Which is why we have friends, family, jobs and religion.
When you are invested into a cult experience, it becomes your reason for existence. I was born into a religious cult where it was the only world that I knew. Everyone that I knew and loved was invested 100% into the cult, as far as I knew. If they had reservations, they were always couched into “the perfection of the cult, but the inherent weakness of people” who can’t accept God’s plan for the chosen few.
When you start to see through the cult and realize that your choice is to continue to embrace something you don’t believe, or destroy your relationship with everyone you love, that is when the suicidal thoughts become an everyday occurrence.
If you are fortunate enough to survive the experience, you would not wish it on anyone.
I have never meet this man or know anything about him. But if he really believed in the values his cult stood for, I think he would still be alive. The challenge is the transformation from cult member to independent thinker. And that takes time. And it is a daunting task to watch your world implode, and be able to give it time.
Well said, Russ.
Very interesting insight, Russ. Glad you made it out in one piece.
He should have electrocuted himself with a solar panel, or cook himself with mirrors and the sun.
Here are seven threads about depressed warmists and others on WUWT: I suspect I’ve missed a few, such as links in the SEPP weekly posts.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/14/more-depressed-scientists/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/03/good-grief-a-support-group-for-the-climate-faithful/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/17/oh-ffs-researchers-explore-psychological-effects-of-climate-change/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/14/climate-activists-final-act-as-they-move-into-the-last-stage-of-grief/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/27/five-stages-of-climate-grief/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/05/activists-go-thru-5-stages-of-grief-for-the-climate-change-campaign/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/18/joe-romm-of-climate-progress-exploits-the-death-of-robin-williams-for-climate-propaganda/