Eight years ago, on this day, April 14th, 2018,
lawyer and environmental activist David Buckel burned himself to death in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in what has been called the first self-immolation in the name of climate change.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 408ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that suicide as a political protest probably goes back a very very long way. The most famous 20th century example would be the Buddhist monks in Vietnam in 1963. There was a guy at the Pentagon in 1965 too.
The specific context was that it was clear from (at the absolute latest) the early 2000s that we were not, at a species level, going to take the steps necessary.
What I think we can learn from this is that we’re doomed.
What happened next: The protest didn’t lead to the growth of the kind of mass movements, capable of outlasting repression, co-optation, exhaustion that we need. Or needed. What we need now is a freaking time machine.
Vale David Buckel.
But this is not, in my opinion, the way forward. Suicide doesn’t build movements. If you need help, well, I don’t know what the numbers are in your country, but in the UK there’s the Samaritans.
Also on this day:
April 14, 1964 – RIP Rachel Carson
April 14th, 1989 – 24 US senators call for immediate unilateral climate action