Self-immolation of Wynn Bruce

On April 22, 2022, climate activist Wynn Alan Bruce set himself on fire in the plaza of the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. The fatal self-immolation, which took place on Earth Day, was characterized by Bruce's friends and his father as a protest against the climate crisis.

Wynn Alan Bruce was a climate activist from Boulder, Colorado.

He grew up in Minnesota, where he participated in varsity cross country running.

An article in Colorado Newsline noted that when Wynn Bruce was born, the temperature globally was 0.01°C above the average global temperature from the mid-1900s.

When he died, the temperature was roughly 0.85°C above that average and continuing to rise.

In the years before his self-immolation, Bruce expressed intense concern about climate change on his Facebook account, sharing related news articles and praising activists including Greta Thunberg.

In the late 1980s, he moved to Florida to live with his mother, attending Hernando High School where he was a member of the science club.

He graduated high school in 1989 and planned to join the US Air Force, but an accident in a car driven by one of his friends killed the friend and severely injured Bruce; he suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as damage to one of his legs.

According to some of Bruce's friends and neighbors, he often had difficulty making decisions as a result of his traumatic brain injury; two described him to The Independent as "suggestible".

He told them he intended to travel to Denver to meet with his "meditation group"; he was unable to drive because of his injuries from the 1989 car accident.

One neighbor did drop Bruce at the bus station; he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and carrying a backpack.

It is not known how he reached Washington, D.C.

At roughly 6:30 p.m. on April 22, 2022 (Earth Day), Bruce approached the plaza of the United States Supreme Court Building on foot, silently sat down, and self-immolated.

According to a photographer who was present at the scene, Bruce sat upright and did not scream or cry out while on fire for a period of about 60 seconds, after which police extinguished the fire; only after the fire was out did he audibly express pain.

Police officers used traffic cones to scoop water from a fountain in the plaza to extinguish Bruce.

Nobody else was injured.

Minutes after the self-immolation, he was airlifted to a hospital by a helicopter belonging to the National Park Service.

Bruce died the following day as a result of his injuries; he was 50 years old.

He moved to Boulder in the year 2000, and became interested in photojournalism.

Bruce lived alone in Boulder, in a townhouse that was part of the city's affordable housing program.

He had a cat.

He was a Buddhist, and while living in Boulder he practiced Shambhala Buddhism.

For some time he was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, which hosted his memorial service.

He was a photojournalist who ran a portrait photography studio, an active member of Boulder's contact improvisational dance community, and a graduate of Front Range Community College and Community College of Denver.

He was additionally a climate activist.

According to his father, Douglas Bruce, "concern about the environment and climate issues" was "really heartfelt and central" to Wynn Bruce's identity; it had been a lifelong commitment that began with childhood trips to a family cabin at Lake Superior.

Bruce's father Douglas Bruce told The Washington Post that his son had made a previous attempt at self-immolation in 2017 at the World Trade Center, and was stopped by bystanders.

Douglas Bruce stated that his son was hospitalized in New York after the incident, that he accompanied Bruce back to Boulder to seek psychological support, and that he never learned why his son had attempted to kill himself.

Bruce's self-immolation came after various negative reports about the climate.

A working group within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had recently released its Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change report as part of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, stating that action to reduce the most extreme effects of climate change would need to happen "now or never" and leading António Guterres to criticize "a litany of broken climate promises" by world leaders.

Climate-related natural disasters and other crises were also increasing at the time; Bruce's home of Colorado had experienced its most destructive wildfire ever in December 2021, and its three largest wildfires ever in 2020.

In February 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments for the case West Virginia v. EPA; the court's decision on the case could limit or revoke the ability of the United States Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, and the conservative majority on the court had indicated that they may do so.

The court additionally had other upcoming environmental cases on the docket.

As early as April 2020, he used the account to decry public inaction in response to the climate crisis.

On October 30, 2020, Bruce posted a link to an edX class focused on the science of climate change.

In April 2021, Bruce commented "4-1-1" on the post; in October 2021, he edited the comment, adding a fire emoji.

On April 2, 2022, he edited the comment again to add the date "4/22/2022".

Additionally, in January 2022, Bruce posted a photo of antiwar activist Thích Nhất Hạnh, who wrote in 1965 on the self-immolation of Buddhist monks that "to burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance".

Bruce later commented on the post with a quote he attributed to Hanh: "The most important thing, in response to climate change, is to be willing to hear the sound of the earth’s tears through our own bodies."

In the afternoon on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, Bruce asked two of his neighbors if they could drive him to the bus station in Boulder.