Tim DeChristopher on the Late Show with David Letterman

I woke up this morning to read an epic Facebook Note by Arnold Schwarzenegger! This sent me careening around the internet looking up the recent history of climate change activism until I rediscovered Tim DeChristopher. Of course this is a little old but I thought I would share it for the first time on Tom Paine's Ghost today in the wake of the Paris Climate Change summit. I feel obligated to new TPG readers to catch you up on the story of Tim DeChristopher who in a very real way helped save a precious resource in the United States from environmental destruction. For anyone who has ever traveled to Moab, UT and seen the otherworldly beauty that abounds there, you may want to know this story...

Tim DeChristopher

A hero of mine named Timothy DeChristopher was transferred from solitary confinement back to minimum security prison after people called their respective congress people to complain. Here's a guy doing jail-time for blocking oil and gas drilling in one of the most beautiful places on earth while not a single banker is in jail for preying on American home-buyers. I continue to be outraged by this especially considering that the group of oil and gas leases DeChristopher blocked were deemed inappropriate to begin with by the Obama administration. If you can help him out at bidder70.org.

 

Tim DeChristopher "Obedience scarier than prison."

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From Modern Hiker. First mentioned to me by Charlie Malone of Matter Daily today! The video brought tears to my eyes.

"In 2008, when the George W. Bush administration was on its way out the door, it decided to launch one final giveaway to oil and gas companies by leasing hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Utah overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Frustrated opponents protested outside the BLM building in Salt Lake City while the auction was being held in December of ’08, but Tim DeChristopher, a 27 year old University of Utah economics student, took action.

DeChristopher went into the auction as a bidder, and despite not having any money, successfully bid on 148,598 acres of land for over $7 million. When he wasn’t able to win a bid, he was able to drive up the costs of leases for oil and gas companies. By the time the paperwork was done on the land DeChristopher successfully bid on, a new administration was in office – one that agreed most of the land up for sale should never have been put up for auction in the first place."

Read the rest of the story here.