On April 22, longtime climate activist Wynn Alan Bruce set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court in an apparent act of protest over government inaction on climate change. He died from his injuries the next day. While there has been speculation over Bruce’s exact motives, those close to him have expressed certainty that his actions were political. As his friend, Dr. Kritee Kanko, said on Twitter at the time of his death, “This is not suicide. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis.” Kanko’s assertion was further corroborated by a Facebook post by Bruce, from 2020, which he had recently edited to comment “4/22/22” next to a fire emoji.
On April 22, longtime climate activist Wynn Alan Bruce set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court. / Image: Facebook
Wynn’s death is a tragedy and a symptom of the current state of the climate crisis. It is an extreme expression of the widespread sense of doom increasingly felt by millions of people. In fact, this was the second self-immolation by a climate change activist in recent years. In 2018, Brooklyn climate activist David Buckel also lit himself on fire, stating in his suicide note, “Here is a hope that giving a life might bring some attention to the need for expanded action.”
It is striking that the current climate movement, with its 50-year history and many thousands of sincere, committed activists, has reached such a dead-end that it could drive a person into such a state of despair and demoralization. Anyone involved in the fight against climate change inaction must seek to understand how we got to this point to chart a path forward.
A crisis decades in the making
For half a century, the capitalist government and oil companies like ExxonMobil have known about climate change. Humanity has had more than enough time to address global warming. But the capitalist class, a small group of social parasites who control the vast majority of the economy, has continuously ignored or actively worsened the climate crisis for decades, making colossal profits along the way.
Today, climate change is no longer an abstract “future problem.” As any resident of the American West can attest to, devastating wildfires are becoming increasingly common. Last year, Siberia—a place where wildfires were previously unheard of—had a fire bigger than every other one in the world combined at the time. A few months later, the East Coast of the United States faced yet another “once in a lifetime” storm, with Hurricane Ida ravaging Louisiana and flooding countless homes and subway stations in New York City.
Furthermore, the UN’s World Meteorological Association has shown that disasters like floods and deadly heat waves are five times more common than they were 50 years ago. And these examples are only the tip of the iceberg. Scientists have been very clear that as the planet continues to warm, these crises will only increase in severity and frequency.
Mainstream climate movement at an impasse
While the ruling class has refused to address this crisis for decades, climate activists have spent just as long trying to take action. The climate movement emerged dramatically in 1970, at the time of the first Earth Day, which was one of the largest protests the world had ever seen. 20 million people took to the streets in the United States, leading to the adoption of a few major policies including the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
In recent years, the climate movement has been rejuvenated by a new generation. These newly energized climate activists represent an important step forward. / Image: Fightback
But without a revolutionary leadership that could explain that the root of the problem is not human activity in the abstract, but capitalist human activity, the movement could not meaningfully confront the problem. From the beginning, the climate movement was dominated by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements who emphasized personal responsibility and small-scale consumer choices, with such slogans as, “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.” Its tactics centered around inciting people to protest, encouraging people to alter their consumption habits, and electing more “green” politicians—almost always Democrats who would subsequently do nothing substantial to address the issue. For decades, climate change has worsened under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
In recent years, the climate movement has been rejuvenated by a new generation, providing a ray of hope to longtime activists like Bruce. These newly energized climate activists represent an important step forward. It is now much better understood that pollution is not caused primarily by individuals, but by giant corporations, with just 100 companies responsible for 70% of all emissions since 1988. And to some extent, climate activists are beginning to recognize the explicit role of capitalism.
Nonetheless, without a class-struggle leadership, the movement has mostly just repeated the old methods: electing Democratic politicians and organizing protests and publicity stunts in the hopes that politicians would legislate away the climate crisis. Activists have fought with all they had, using the only methods they knew. Now, the Supreme Court appears poised to cripple the EPA by restricting its ability to act without congressional approval—a blatant attack on hard-won gains of the climate movement—in the very building Wynn Bruce died in front of.
Fight for socialism!
With capitalism in perpetual crisis—economic turmoil, climate change, state violence, decades-long wars, and disease—it’s easy to see how people could lose hope. Many climate activists perceive that nothing substantial is being done and conclude that people are apathetic about the problem. But this is not the case. A majority of Americans support measures to address climate change. The youth, in particular, who understand that they will have to deal with the consequences, care deeply. For instance, last year, one study found that 60% of young people in 14 countries were “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change.
The reason so little is done is that this government is a government of the capitalist class. Whether the capitalists and their politicians subjectively desire to curb climate change or not, ultimately, the needs of their system are their first and only priority. This renders any substantive action impossible. The blame for the escalating climate crisis—and by extension, the deaths of Wynn Bruce and David Buckel—lie squarely on the capitalist class—and particularly those representatives of the Democratic Party, who play a particularly pernicious role in perpetuating this crisis.
To truly address climate change, a class-struggle approach is necessary. The climate crisis is not caused simply by a few “bad apples.” It is caused by a completely rotten system. / Image: Socialist Revolution
To truly address climate change, a class-struggle approach is necessary—one that studies the lessons of past mass movements, understands how this crisis developed, and knows what we’re up against. The climate crisis is not caused simply by a few “bad apples,” a few capitalists that have stepped out of line. It is caused by a completely rotten system, driven by a ruling class that has spent 200 years chasing endless profits on a finite planet. As Marxists “we have seen the enemy”—but it is not us. It is the capitalist class, which extracts every resource and ounce of labor from the planet and its people, leaving senseless suffering and pollution in its wake.
In this sense, the activist slogan “system change, not climate change” is correct, but it must be taken further by anyone truly dedicated to ensuring the habitability of the earth. The system is capitalism, and the change we need is the socialist revolution. The time for mere climate activism is over. What is needed today are socialist revolutionaries who bring this perspective to the climate movement and link that struggle to the labor movement and the overall struggle for socialism.
Under capitalism, the science and technology required to end climate change remain straight-jacketed by the profit motive. But with a socialist transformation of society we could put all the advances of science to work for humanity and the planet we live on, under the ownership and control of collective humanity, not the parasitic polluters.
Wynn Bruce’s death is a terrible loss and should remind us all of the urgency of solving the climate crisis, which has already taken countless lives worldwide. It should inspire us, not to follow his example, but to fight collectively against a system that creates so much tragedy. It is long overdue that the working class take control of society and put an end to the destructive greed that has put our futures at risk. To echo the words of Karl Marx: workers of the world unite, we have a world to win—and a planet to save!