Will Upping The Ante Win Climate Activists Support or Scorn?

Extinction Rebellion activist Howard Breen, on Day 27 of his hunger strike, under house arrest at his back-lot cabin in Nanaimo, B.C. Photo credit: Peter Fairley

Climate protest via self-sacrifice is on the rise globally. Extinction Rebellion activists in the UK, for instance, have started to deliberately seek imprisonment. Hunger strikes are seemingly everywhere. And then there’s the ultimate sacrifice, self-immolation. 50-year old Colorado activist Wynn Bruce burned alive on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Earth Day last month.

I reported on this abnormal new normal from the inside for The Tyee, visiting veteran British Columbia activist and hunger striker Howard Breen.

What drives Breen and his comrades-in-nonviolence? Can their highly-polarizing sacrificial protests accelerate climate protection, or will they be written-off as misguided and/or mentally ill? Read the story @TheTyee.