Wynn Alan Bruce – A Man to Remember 

Six months ago, on Earth Day, April 22nd, climate activist Wynn Alan Bruce self-immolated himself in front of the Supreme Court building. For those unaware of what self-immolation is, it means to set oneself on fire. 

Bruce felt compelled to do this in a desperate attempt to raise awareness about the worsening climate emergency.  

This tragic loss of life and show of commitment to one’s cause was seemingly and swiftly buried in major news outlets. While some reported on the incident, the story appeared to be largely ignored. Even now, when I search his name, there seem to be few news stories on the first page that are from mainstream media outlets. In addition, those outlets all appeared to publish those articles days after the incident.

I only learned about it from the people I follow on Twitter with ties to the climate activism community. And I didn’t learn about it for days after. I was shocked at the lack of coverage for it. I began asking people over the next few days and weeks if they’d heard about it. They had not. It alarmed me how little this story was being shared. Like the reports of it existed, but the algorithms or otherwise were keeping it from the top of feeds and top of the news.

It felt like something that should have stopped the world, if only for a moment. The thought that someone was so overcome with grief about our destruction of the planet and the impending doom of our species and all other life on Earth if we don’t act, that he took his own life in such a way. 

He didn’t just end his life because of the grief, he made his death a statement. And it made me upset that that statement was not getting the attention it deserved. 

In Light Recent Climate Protests

Six months after his death and there are still people who never heard that this happened. 

As it so happens, I was writing this article amid the recent climate protest where a couple of Just Stop Oil climate activists threw cans of tomato sauce on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting on October 14th. Don’t worry, the painting is unharmed – it was protected by glass. Since then, another protest involving a famous painting, this time a Monet, occurred as activists threw mashed potatoes on it. This painting was also protected by glass and undamaged.

I won’t get into the discussion about the incident here, that may be a topic for another day if I have time to share my thoughts on it and the discourse surrounding it.

Instead, what I want to mention is that I’ve seen multiple people point out how these incidents got so much more attention than Wynn Alan Bruce’s death this past April. It felt like a sign to me that the time was right to be posting this.

Honoring Wynn Alan Bruce’s Sacrifice

The reality of this didn’t fully hit me until about a couple of days after hearing about Wynn Alan Bruce’s self-immolation. The horror of it all finally weighed in on me, and I was saddened by it, grieving for the loss of someone I didn’t even know. I felt compelled to honor this man in some way. 

So, I sat down with my tablet and began drawing. As it seems to be the way of things for me with life being so busy, I only just got the design finished today as I post this. My intention was to have this done on Saturday, the 22nd, but c’est la vie.

It started off as an image of a greyed-out person sitting cross-legged, enveloped in flames. Though the person was unidentifiable, I wrote ‘Wynn Alan Bruce’ above to identify who it was supposed to be referencing. I also added his date of birth and death: 8-25-1971 and 4-2-2022.

In the hands of the person, I drew the Earth on fire and gave the impression that the person holding it was looking down on it in sadness at the loss of life. While Bruce died by flames, the larger concept is that our planet is being systematically burned to death too, killed by corporations and governments stripping it of its resources and by our reliance on fossil fuels. 

From there, I decided to add color to the design instead of leaving it as is. I used color to develop depth and shade and detailed the flames to include a sense of sad beauty in them. Still, it felt like I was missing something. A statement to add that captured the essence of this story and this man’s sacrifice. I wrote underneath, “Don’t Go Unnoticed…” and began detailing the letters.

I should disclaim that I don’t mean this statement to endorse the idea of taking one’s life for this or any cause. And I especially don’t mean to suggest people self-immolate. 

Rather, I intend for it to mean that whatever we individually leave behind on this planet, we leave something behind that is bold and beautiful, and meaningful. Live your life in a way that others take notice of your actions, your kindness, and to any other facet of yourself that leaves this world better than you found it. Find what your blaze of glory is and strive to always go out in it as you make your mark. 

I added some extra details here and there, including a colorful seed with roots underneath the person with the intent to suggest a seed being planted in people’s minds and taking root to take action. I also made an infinity symbol above the seed, acting as the leaves growing out of it in an endless cycle of life and death.

You’ll notice that the ‘d’ in ‘unnoticed’ looks like a cactus, which is meant to convey the idea that his sacrifice is a thorn in the side of the powers that be complicit in the destruction of our planet. Cacti are also a beautiful, resilient species, and that is also a nod to that. 

And I put an ankh within the second letter ‘t’ to represent its meaning of life.

I have been working on this design for months. As we approached the six-month anniversary of Wynn Alan Bruce’s death, I decided I needed to hurry up and get this design done and also write about the event that so many people are still unaware even happened. And while I’m a little late, I am very proud of my work on this, and I hope you all appreciate it.

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Where Do We Go From Here?

So here we are, six months later. It seems nothing has changed, except that the climate crisis has only intensified, as we saw historic floods and fires throughout the summer, followed by the recent catastrophic hurricane in Florida. Still, nothing is happening. Nothing is being done to fight this problem. Instead, our leaders continue to ignore it and try to act business as usual. 

Even though the Biden administration recently passed a bill that included funding to address climate change, and it’s the most money budgeted for the issue thus far, it’s woefully underwhelming in the grand scheme of things. 

For one, the bill allocates $375 billion over the next decade–a measly $37.5 billion per year. I, for one, found this incredibly insulting. Our fiscal defense budget for 2022 was almost $778 billion, just for the 2022 fiscal year alone. Our priorities are completely off by far.

Secondly, the bill also allows for an unprecedented amount of new oil and gas leases to be approved on federal lands and waters.

Meaning that we’re still systematically ignoring the fact that fossil fuels are the primary driving force behind the climate emergency and the fact that the US military is one of the worst polluters on the planet. 

This inaction tarnishes the memory and sacrifice of Wynn Alan Bruce, as it does to all other victims of the climate crisis past and future. Of which the death toll with only rise as time passes. 

Altogether, I know firsthand how daunting the situation feels. I continue to deal personally with the depression and anxiety directly associated with the climate crisis. During the most major climate catastrophes of recent years, like the fires in Australia and the heat waves last year that killed billions of animals, respectively, I too felt like all hope seemed lost. 

But at the end of the day, we must never lose hope. There are so many people out there fighting for action on the climate crisis and fighting overall for a better future. We all have a part to play in it, so we can’t give up or give in. I’m not giving up. The powers that be want us to give in and let them continue their destruction. Are we going to let them?

A Sticker and a Donation in Honor of Wynn Alan Bruce

So to honor Wynn Alan Bruce and all who fight for a better future, I decided to release this design as a Sticker For Solidarity and an art print, available in 4×4 and 8×8 sizes. As of writing this, there doesn’t appear to be a foundation or organization formed in honor of Bruce, so for now, I will align this sticker’s donation with One Tree Planted, an organization working to address the climate crisis through reforestation and planting tree saplings in critical areas. Each purchase of this design as a sticker or print will result in a tree planting. 

You can pre-order now on our Square store. It may take a few weeks for the prints and stickers to arrive, but I will make your tree donation immediately. Orders will be shipped within one week of my receiving the items. 

Please understand that I don’t mean to profit from this man’s death. Your purchase, like all of our stickers and things, goes right back into funding this magazine. I do not make any profit from the magazine and operate it at a loss. I just wanted to establish that before the inevitable person comments on my intention for this design. My intention is to raise awareness and use this design to help fight the climate crisis through tree plantings.

Anyway, I will end this with this quote from Van Gogh himself, as I feel it ties into the whole theme of both this article and, subsequently, the recent incident involving his own painting and how it all connects.

“It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.”

Vincent Van Gogh