Tim DeChristopher Deserves the Medal of Freedom Today, Not a Prison Sentence
Jeff Biggers
March 3, 2011
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/tim-dechristopher-deserve_b_831130.html
When President Obama conferred the National Medal of
Arts and the National Humanities Medal on several
American heroes yesterday, including
Wendell Berry, he forgot one last award
Freedom to Tim DeChristopher.
Instead of being convicted today on two felony accounts
for placing bids and disrupting an auction for pristine
wilderness
gas and oil exploration, 27-year-old Tim DeChristopher
should have been receiving our nation's highest honor
for "an especially meritorious contribution to the
security or national interests of the
In truth, according to DeChristopher supporters, the
leases auctioned to DeChristopher were later overturned
by the Obama administration on the grounds that the
George W. Bush administration's Bureau of Land
Management had failed to complete the analysis required
by federal law for the "protection of national and cultural resources."
Mr. President
admonished critics in 1963 from his
cell that our nation's indifference to the civil rights
crisis demanded acts of civil disobedience, Tim
DeChristopher has followed in King's call "to create a
situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open
the door to negotiation."
At his trial in Salt Lake City this week, DeChristopher
declared
delay [the auction] so that the government could take a
second look, and make sure they were following their own rules."
If only to force our nation -- and President -- to
recognize the escalating crisis of climate
destabilization and the unacceptable human and
environmental costs of unchecked extraction policies,
Tim DeChristopher deserves the Medal of Freedom, not a prison sentence.
Even you, Mr. President, have said
climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril."
Our nation's leading climate scientist James Hansen has
warned us
similar to that on which civilization developed and to
which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence
and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need
to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."
Seeing how our nation continues to burn 115,000 tons of
coal and releases 250,000 tons of CO2 from coal-fired
plants EVERY HOUR...
Tim DeChristopher deserves the Medal of Freedom, not a
prison sentence.
Seeing how six coal miners and three rescue workers are
now entombed in
ridden mine, as its mine operator walked free and our
coal mining companies continue to operate in a state of violation...
Tim DeChristopher deserves the Medal of Freedom, not a prison sentence.
Seeing how
mine within 10 miles of the beloved
Tim DeChristopher deserves the Medal of Freedom, not a prison sentence.
Seeing how more than 500 mountains and an estimated 1.5
million acres of hardwood forests and 2,000 miles of
headwater streams have been irreversibly destroyed by
devastating mountaintop removal strip-mining in
from
Tim DeChristopher deserves the Medal of Freedom, not a prison sentence.
Seeing how natural gas fracking operations have
poisoned the land and watersheds from drilling across the nation....
Tim DeChristopher deserves the Medal of Freedom, not a prison sentence.
Seeing how the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year
devastated untold marine life and coastal livelhoods
and resulted in more than $40 billion in damages....
Tim DeChristopher deserves the Medal of Freedom, not a prison sentence.
Driven by a declared "moral imperative" to protect
wilderness and prevent further contributions to climate
change, Tim DeChristopher's act was nothing less, as
the Medal of Freedom recognizes, than "an especially
meritorious contribution to the security or national
interests of the
Jeff Biggers is the author of "Reckoning at Eagle
Creek
=====
As Climate Crime Continues, Who Are We Sending To Jail? Tim DeChristopher?
By Bill McKibben
3 MAR 2011
Let's consider for a moment the targets the federal
government chooses to make an example of. So far, no
bankers have been charged, despite the unmitigated
greed that nearly brought the world economy down. No
coal or oil execs have been charged, despite fouling
the entire atmosphere and putting civilization as we
know it at risk.
But engage in creative protest that mildly disrupts the
efficient sell-off of our landscape to oil and gas
barons? As Tim DeChristopher found out on Thursday,
that'll get you not just a week in court, but
potentially a long stretch in the pen.
Tim is a hero not because he knew what he was getting
into. As his testimony made clear this week, he had no
idea at all; his decision to become Bidder No. 70 was
about as spontaneous an action as we've ever seen.
And that's what we need more of. More willingness to
jump. Not blindly -- if were going to do civil
disobedience on a mass scale, and I think we're going
to have to, then some careful planning is necessary.
But when you get right down to it, there's always going
to be a moment when you have to say
to leave behind the world you've known and take a
chance. The furniture of power -- from stone-faced cops
to imposing courthouses -- is all designed to make you
turn back from that edge.
Tim took that leap. The government is going to try and
make an example of him. It will be harder for them if
there are more of us.
And who should that us be? Not just, or even mainly,
college kids. That's too easy, and it's not fair since
they still have first jobs to land, careers to build.
Better those of us who have spent our lives pouring
carbon into the air. I remember my old and dear friend
Doris Haddock, also known as Granny D. We were arrested
together a decade ago, in the first instance of civil
disobedience on climate change in the country. Compared
with Tim we took no real risk -- as it turned out, we
didn't even spend the whole night in jail. But I
remember the moment when Granny D, handcuffed to me,
looked up and said, "I'm 93 and I've never been
arrested before. I should have started long ago!"
If you're outraged by what happened to Tim, and if
you're inspired, make sure to follow the group he's
helped found, Peaceful Uprising (peacefuluprising.org/).
And if you're thinking about laying it on the line,
give us your name at www.ClimateDirectAction.org.
If the feds think this prosecution/persecution will
deter us from working for a livable planet, they
couldn't be more wrong. Tim was brave and alone. We
will be brave in quantity.
Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books on the
environment, a scholar in residence at Middlebury
College, and founder of 350.org. He also serves on
Grist’s board of directors.
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