The Civil Rights Lawyer Who Set Himself on Fire

A noted civil rights attorney, who later in his career turned to the climate change issue, committed suicide as an act of protest, in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. He chose the early morning when no one would be around, leaving a note to the police apologizing for the mess. According to the New York Times account, this was one of a few cases of self-immolation in the United States since the 1960s, and possibly the first anywhere done in the name of climate change. The attorney, David Buckel, had worked for L.G.B.T. rights for a number of years, both as a strategist and litigator for Lambda Legal, winning some important courtroom battles, including Nabozny v. Podlesny, in which a federal court ruled for the first time that schools had an obligation to protect gay student from bullying, In recent years, his attention had turned to environmentalism and the issue of climate change, and at the time of his death he was running a large community composting operation on the Brooklyn waterfront. There he had become known for his meticulous management skills and generous mentoring of volunteers, many of whom came from low-income backgrounds. Shortly before he died he sent an email to news media, explaining what he was about to do, and why. “My early death by fossil fuel,” he wrote, “reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”