Will Tim DeChristopher go to prison? [VIDEOS]

Who is Tim DeChristopher, you probably ask? Someone's who's facing 10 years in jail, more time than many rapists and murderers spend, for disrupting an auction. Peacefully.

http://www.grist.org/climate-energy/201 ... ison-video
Will Tim DeChristopher go to prison? [/b] by Ask Umbra 26 Jul 2011 [quote]Dearest readers, I am writing to you from Salt Lake City, Utah. Today at 3 p.m. (MDT) marks the long-awaited sentencing of climate activist Tim DeChristopher. Found guilty on two federal felonies, DeChristopher faces up to 10 years in prison for a creative action he took to interfere with a gas and oil auction through the Bureau of Land Management at the end of the Bush administration. Now 30, DeChristopher has waited since December 2008 with a Zen-like calm. DeChristopher improvised when asked if he was there to bid at the auction. He said “Yes” and was handed bidder paddle number 70, whereupon he bid on parcels of land until he was stopped and the bidding was halted altogether. According to the website of Peaceful Uprising, the organization Tim cofounded, “By raising his bidder paddle that day, Tim actually shed light on the illegality of a rushed auction, clearly a parting gift from the Bush administration to the fossil-fuel industry. Yet during his trial, Tim was was never allowed to tell the jury about the illegitimacy of the auction or about his attempts to raise the funds to pay for the land he had won. Furthermore, he was strictly forbidden from even mentioning climate change and the moral imperatives motivating his action!” He’s feeling good about having stood up for what he feels is right, despite the consequences. “It’s made me start to view myself as a powerful activist, as somebody who can be a powerful agent of change. Not somebody who’s a victim of my society,” says DeChristopher of life after his creative act of nonviolent civil disobedience.[/quote] [youtube:2s09144o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtdKw0X_cm4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube:2s09144o] And there's more videos on the link above. The civil disobedience has begun. Protesters are [url=http://www.newsday.com/news/g-8-protesters-scale-smokestacks-in-italy-1.1275809:2s09144o]scaling smoke stacks[/url] at coal plants, getting [url=http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/hansen-of-nasa-arrested-in-coal-country/:2s09144o]arrested[/url] at mountain-top strip mines, and [url=http://www.350.org/:2s09144o]staging demonstrations[/url] and [url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1942130,00.html:2s09144o]protests[/url] across the world more and more frequently. If you are one who is still skeptical of global warming, that's fine, but I, for one, am done waiting for you to change your minds - the mitigation needed to start already. Preventative actions are taken all the time before conclusive evidence has presented itself whether it's warranted or not, and AGW has more than enough conclusive evidence, plus the fact that fossil fuels are finite, associated pollution due to their use is obvious and needs to be reduced, and waiting until the perception that the fuels are scarce and become prohibitively expensive to extract is just stupid and short-sighted. If you think switching over to renewable energy is expensive, wait until the price of food and gasoline has skyrocketed - it's already been going up and unless you want more federal tax dollars to subsidize it even further than it already it, it ain't goin' back down. Let's start taking charge of our economy, and our future, by making ourselves self-sufficient![VIDEO][/b]
by Ask Umbra
26 Jul 2011

Dearest readers,

I am writing to you from Salt Lake City, Utah. Today at 3 p.m. (MDT) marks the long-awaited sentencing of climate activist Tim DeChristopher. Found guilty on two federal felonies, DeChristopher faces up to 10 years in prison for a creative action he took to interfere with a gas and oil auction through the Bureau of Land Management at the end of the Bush administration. Now 30, DeChristopher has waited since December 2008 with a Zen-like calm.

DeChristopher improvised when asked if he was there to bid at the auction. He said “Yes” and was handed bidder paddle number 70, whereupon he bid on parcels of land until he was stopped and the bidding was halted altogether.

According to the website of Peaceful Uprising, the organization Tim cofounded, “By raising his bidder paddle that day, Tim actually shed light on the illegality of a rushed auction, clearly a parting gift from the Bush administration to the fossil-fuel industry. Yet during his trial, Tim was was never allowed to tell the jury about the illegitimacy of the auction or about his attempts to raise the funds to pay for the land he had won. Furthermore, he was strictly forbidden from even mentioning climate change and the moral imperatives motivating his action!”

He’s feeling good about having stood up for what he feels is right, despite the consequences. “It’s made me start to view myself as a powerful activist, as somebody who can be a powerful agent of change. Not somebody who’s a victim of my society,” says DeChristopher of life after his creative act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

[youtube:2s09144o][/youtube:2s09144o]

And there's more videos on the link above. The civil disobedience has begun. Protesters are scaling smoke stacks at coal plants, getting arrested at mountain-top strip mines, and staging demonstrations and protests across the world more and more frequently.

If you are one who is still skeptical of global warming, that's fine, but I, for one, am done waiting for you to change your minds - the mitigation needed to start already. Preventative actions are taken all the time before conclusive evidence has presented itself whether it's warranted or not, and AGW has more than enough conclusive evidence, plus the fact that fossil fuels are finite, associated pollution due to their use is obvious and needs to be reduced, and waiting until the perception that the fuels are scarce and become prohibitively expensive to extract is just stupid and short-sighted. If you think switching over to renewable energy is expensive, wait until the price of food and gasoline has skyrocketed - it's already been going up and unless you want more federal tax dollars to subsidize it even further than it already it, it ain't goin' back down. Let's start taking charge of our economy, and our future, by making ourselves self-sufficient!