This last Friday, April 22nd was Earth Day. At 6:30 pm a man named Wynn Bruce (no relation to Batman) used an extreme form of protest by setting himself on fire in front of the US Supreme Court. The same form of protest was used by Buddhist monks in Tibet to protest Chinese intervention. It became a symbol of Tibet's independence movement. Before that, it was used by Vietnamese monks to protest the Vietnam War.

Lack of Justice on Climate Change

It's no secret that large oil companies like BP, Exxon, and Shell spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year lobbying lawmakers to block or delay climate legislation. They have been doing this successfully for decades. The most recent republican US President was known to gut funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and recruited a former CEO of Exxon as Secretary of State When the profits of a few publicly traded companies outweigh the global benefit of billions of people, it points to something deeply wrong with the way climate justice has been enforced so far.

By taking this issue straight to the doorstep of the Supreme Court, it sends a powerful message of climate regulation. Creating laws around environmental protection and limiting carbon emissions can lead to a cleaner world for all citizens to survive and thrive in. One of these laws that has had some success is the cap and trade program that places a limit on carbon emissions by private industry. In order to exceed these emission limits, companies must buy emissions credits from sources that sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

A Personal Protest

While I'm not one to protest like a Buddhist monk, I respect the fact that Wynn Bruce felt so strongly about the way the climate issue is being mishandled. Hurricanes, wildfires, and floods keep getting more extreme. I've written about extreme weather being one of the first signs of an unsustainable climate. After studying Environmental Engineering for my Bachelor's Degree, it was an ethical decision for me not to pursue it as a career because many of the largest employers are oil companies looking to meet the minimum environmental standards possible. Instead, I had a knack for technology and saw a promising future in the problems it could solve. If luck will have it, maybe there'll be an opportunity for me to combine these two skills and help address climate change in my own way with the technical skills I've developed.