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TechnoratiOne Man’s Bid to Aid the Environment
Tim DeChristopher is an economics student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He had just finished his last final exam before winter break. One of the exam questions was: If the oil and gas companies are the only ones that bid on public lands, are the true costs of oil and gas exploitation reflected in the prices paid?
DeChristopher was inspired. He finished the exam, threw on his red parka and went off to the Bureau of Land Management land auction that the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance called "the Bush administration's last great gift to the oil and gas industry." Instead of joining the protest outside, he registered as a bidder, then bought 22,000 acres of public land. That is, he successfully bid on the public properties, located near the Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and Dinosaur National Monument, and other pristine areas. The price tag: more than $1.7 million.
He told me: "Once I started buying up every parcel, they understood pretty clearly what was going on ... they stopped the auction, and some federal agents came in and took me out. I guess there was a lot of chaos, and they didn't really know how to proceed at that point."
Patrick Shea, a former BLM director, is representing DeChristopher. Shea told the Deseret News: "What Tim did was in the best tradition of civil disobedience, he did this without causing any physical or material harm. His purpose was to draw attention to the illegitimacy and immorality of the process."
There is a long tradition of disrupting land development in Utah. In his memoir, "Desert Solitaire," Edward Abbey, the writer and activist, wrote: "Wilderness. The word itself is music. ... We scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination."
Abbey's novel "The Monkey Wrench Gang" inspired a generation of environmental activists to take "direct action," disrupting "development." As The Salt Lake Tribune reported on DeChristopher: "He didn't pour sugar into a bulldozer's gas tank. He didn't spike a tree or set a billboard on fire. But wielding only a bidder's paddle, a University of Utah student just as surely monkey-wrenched a federal oil- and gas-lease sale Friday, ensuring that thousands of acres near two southern Utah national parks won't be opened to drilling anytime soon."
Likewise, the late Utah Phillips, folk musician, activist and longtime Utah resident, often invoked the Industrial Workers of the World adage: "Direct action gets the goods."
More than just scenic beauty will be harmed by these BLM sales. Drilling impacts air and water quality. According to High Country News, "The BLM had not analyzed impacts on ozone levels from some 2,300 wells drilled in the area since 2004 ... nor had it predicted air impacts from the estimated 6,300 new wells approved in the plan." ProPublica reports that the Colorado River "powers homes for 3 million people, nourishes 15 percent of the nation's crops and provides drinking water to one in 12 Americans. Now a rush to develop domestic oil, gas and uranium deposits along the river and its tributaries threatens its future."
After questioning by federal authorities, DeChristopher was released.
The U.S. attorney is currently weighing charges. DeChristopher reflects: "This has really been emotional and hopeful for me to see the kind of support over the last couple of days ... for all the problems that people can talk about in this country and for all the apathy and the eight years of oppression and the decades of eroding civil liberties, America is still very much the kind of place that when you stand up for what is right, you never stand alone."
His disruption of the auction has temporarily blocked the Bush-enabled land grab by the oil and gas industries. If DeChristopher can come up with $45,000 by Dec. 29, he can make the first payment on the land, possibly avoiding any claim of fraud. If the BLM opts to re-auction the land, it can't happen until after the Obama administration takes over.
The sales, if they happen, will likely be different, thanks to the direct action of an activist, raising his voice, and his bidding paddle, in opposition.
17 Comments so far
Show AllDear Tim –
Thank you for your creative civil action during a crisis situation. It will help save the land we love here in Moab. You and your friends are welcome at our dinner table anytime!
As you enter into a time of public scrutiny and legal complications, it might help you to remember that the word “patriot” comes from the Latin word “patria,” which means home-land, with an emphasis on LAND. In other words, the original meaning of the word “patriot” is a defender of the land against those who seek to conquer it. In this sense, conservationists are the true and original patriots, because they defend the land for its own sake and for the benefit of future generations. Unfortunately, in recent decades the word “patriot” has been co-opted by the far right to mean “those who defend the economic growth of the country at all costs, exploiting the land whenever possible for a quick buck,” and they have wrapped themselves in the American flag to confuse the masses.
Because you now represent the focal point for the competing American values of land preservation and land exploitation — essentially the age-old battle between widsom and greed — you will get to see first-hand how those with financial power use it and abuse it to further their own agendas. Of course you are aware how the Bush administration is leaving a legacy of great violence toward the land of America and the climate of the world. They also leave a legacy of great violence toward innocent people who stood between vast Iraqi oil reserves and the Texas oil-men like Cheney who coveted it blindly. You are now a highly visible person who stands in between these same violent exploiters and the few drops of oil they hope to squeeze from the sands below Moab.
It might be useful to you to remember that both Gandhi and Martin Luther King repeatedly said that, while they would not condone any form of violence, their methods of protest served to expose the violence that already existed, lurking below the surface in the oppressive societies they confronted. While the protesters committed no acts of violence, they were exposed to great violence from the police, who represented the arm of enforcement for oppressive regimes. Similarly, there is great psychological and social violence hiding behind the chant “Drill, baby, drill!” heard at the Republican convention earlier this year. You will be the target of that violence, of the confused masses of people who believe that the only answer for their personal and collective financial woes is the further rape and pillage of the American home-land.
Please use caution where you step, and don’t underestimate the power of angry mobs. Greed, anger, and other human frailties turn into social memes that can cloud the judgment of those in power, even those who are truly well-intentioned. Please treat the individual humans who oppose you with kindness, as if they are confused but well-meaning people, because that is a correct psychological perspective, and a perspective that allows for real and permanent social change.
Gandhi and MLK both humbly adhered to Jesus’s commandment to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” They firmly believed that wisdom and justice would ultimately prevail, not by destroying the people who opposed their peaceful agendas, but by appealing to their shared humanity and eventually winning their enemies over as allies. History has proven them right. Your creative act of civil disobedience has made you the lightening rod for the anger of those who are blinded by the lust for money and oil. Now win them over with wisdom and compassion.
Meanwhile, know that you are a ture hero to me and my wife, Dorina, and we open our guest room to you whenever you visit Moab!
Best regards,
Damian Nash
Moab, Utah
Sioux Rose
DNASH: Wonderfully astute post. Thank you for sharing it.
The kid is a genius.
More of this is what the entire world needs: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE to put the thieving 'elite' back in its place. This Earth belongs to ALL of us.
That's an interesting question to pose on an economics exam--that fact that a tacitly subversive question like that would appear is in itself a hopeful sign. That a student would read and provide precisely the right answer, as Tim did, is even better, of course.
This story needs lots of airplay, not so that we can applaud his actions (lord knows he deserves it, though),but because of the exemplary nature of the action. This is SMART and potentially VERY effective monkeywrenching.
But a caveat--how long will it before one legislator or another (you don't think gas-and-oil are on the phone right now?) introduces a bill making it a felony to "interfere by knowingly placing a bid under false premises during the sale by auction of state owned parcels?"
Props as always to Ms Goodman for trumpeting another story we need to hear.
m horan
http://www.nosuppertonight.com
Five Million people X $10/month = $50 Million/ month.
Let's ring up the Nature Conservancy and GreenPeace, etc.
Cover Tim and get legitimate bidders at the auctions.
Thank you, m.
Hayduke Lives! Somebodies got to do it!
I nominate Tim DeChristopher for the first Ed Abbey Award.
Who does Tim think he is? Does he not understand that Bush has the devine right to give our land and resources to his philantrophic supporters who will return it to the populace through trickle down economics--and that the health dangers from toxic air and water are not relevant, and are only fabricatins of the environmentalists.
Sotheby's better watch out.
cause a ripple.
what a stroke of genius! thank you tim dechristopher for not only THINKING outside the box, but ACTING outside of it also. i applaud your ingenuity and courage to step forward and show it is possible for one person to make a difference.
you have managed to set the ball rolling in a positive direction. now may we pick it up and run with it..........far away from Bush and his crooked cronies. thank you tim and thank you amy goodman for being a shining light in the dark days of media reporting.
Those of you with money, please help DeChristopher make those land payments or contribute to his legal fund. This is really, really important. Wow! What a great thing DeChristopher did. Thanks, Amy, for informing the public about this.
Excellent work, Tim! Thank you for exercising your constitutional rights in such an effective way. By the way, what was the crux of your response to the exam question mentioned by Amy? Obviously one part of the answer is that the oil and gas companies, in their bids, do not include externalities.
FRAUD ? That's become THE AMERICAN WAY. They say Bush has kept us safe since 9/11. Hell he, Cheney and THE COAL INDUSTRY are TOXIC TERRORISTS. They sure like blowing stuff up don't they ? http://www.wisecountyissues.com
Does anyone understand how it is that the oil and gas companies even have a right to bid on that much land? Why are the protesters being completely ignored? Is there any way we or the people of Utah, in this case, could bring up counter charges? Why should Tim have to even face the risk of being put in prison, when the LAND BELONGS TO NO ONE, BUT MORE TECHNICALLY, IT BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA. Does anyone remember America? The UNITED STATES is taking a big poop on America's lovely, fertile, majestic, graceful...head. Tim remembered America, and stood up for her in the interest of all of us and our children. Are the people that are bringing him up on charges being brought up on charges for assisting in the endangerment of millions if not billions and trillions of lives? Mr. DeChristopher was thinking about the FUTURE. The oil and gas companies are thinking about MONEY. These people are obviously sociopathic with greed and are insane, and need to be held accountable or they need medical treatment. NOW. Who's working on it? I would, but I'm not an attorney yet. There are a lot of cases to start working on. This brave man cannot be used as their whipping boy! The stress of this alone is a detriment to his health and to his well being for his lifetime. He's really young. LET HIM GO, YOU MORALLY BANKRUPT PIGS!!
A presidential pardon is in order.
You can donate to Tim's legal fund here:
http://www.oneutah.org/2008/12/20/why-i-disrupted-a-fraudulent-auction