Nearly 40 days for D.C. hunger striker

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WASHINGTON, May 30 (UPI) -- A man has gone more than five weeks without food in a hunger strike at the Canadian Embassy in Washington to protest the use of fossil fuels.

Jay McGinley, 60, has gone 36 days drinking only water as he sits on the pavement outside the embassy. He was hospitalized May 15 when his kidneys almost failed, but returned to his spot the next day, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

McGinley said he wants the United States to stop using fossil fuels from the tar sands deposits in Canada and believes the government will act if 1,000 people die for the cause.

Chris Plunkett, a Canadian Embassy spokesman said McGinley's protest has no effect on Canada mining the sands.

McGinley left his family in 2001 to begin demonstrating for after-school and summer programs, eventually tackling bigger issues like the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the Times reported.

Manny Perez, who founded the software company McGinley worked for before he began demonstrating said he was not too surprised to learn of McGinley's latest protest.

"He danced to the beat of a different drummer, I will say that. He was a rather spiritual guy, and sort of had a New Age aspect to his way of doing things," he said.