DeChristopher sentencing

Excuse me while I take a brief break from pictureposting to express my extreme frustration and disappointment of the sentencing handed down to Tim DeChristopher this afternoon.

In April, I posted a video of DeChristopher from Powershift in Washington, D.C.  While the entire conference was incredibly inspiring, hearing DeChristopher speak for all of 8minutes made me feel like I HAD to do something, that WE had to do something if we are to ever change the current destructive and fatal trajectory that our society is honing in on. His words made me feel as though, if we all worked together, we could truly do something to alter our society and start making right, sane decisions. We could stop blowing up mtns in the name of a dirty fuel source. We could stop selling off beautiful tracts of land for oil and gas exploration. We could stand up together, change our civilization, and change it for the better. After hearing him, I realized that if we are to truly see a change, we must fight and we must fight hard. And while this fight may require incredible challenges and an inconvenience in our daily schedules of school, work, and partying, I knew it was a fight that must be fought.

This afternoon, DeChristopher was sentenced to two years of prison a $10,000 fine for "disrupting a federal oil and gas lease auction." Numerous reports and news stories state that several tracts of Utah land were being sold (illegally) by the federal govt for $2/acre. DeChristopher took a stand and bid on several tracts, ultimately raising the final bids much higher and even winning $1.8million worth of oil and gas leases he had no intention of paying for.

Activism of this kind is unheard of these days. This act of civil disobedience has raised awareness to the auctioning off of public land for decimation and environmental degradation, and DeChristopher has inspired millions of people to finally wake up and act to protect our Earth (myself, included). It appears that the judge of the trial is attempting to deter others from committing more acts of non-violent civil disobedience. I truly hope that this ruling only encourages others to take a stand and fight.

On a completely related note: The antidote to apathy

Dave Meslin: The antidote to apathy | Video on TED.com

10,000 youth proved last weekend in D.C. that we are not apathetic. But we still have a lot of work to do.

Every Generation needs a New Revolution

I recently had a very brief conversation with a state representative at a fundraising event for my internship. During the course of the conversation, said representative began telling me what's going to get the youth out to vote in this coming election.

Now, with all due respect, I admire the work said representative does in the legislature and admire the fact that she's willing to stand up against knucklehead, anti-science conservatives. However, said representative is 70 years old and I can't imagine she spends much time getting into the head of modern-day youth - who is she to tell me what the youth are concerned about?

While this may seem like a petty comment to get worked up over, it did get me thinking. How can we be content letting individuals 40+ years older than us fight for our future? I'm increasingly more aware that NOW IS OUR TIME. If we truly want to see change, we need to be clear on what exactly that entails and we need to start fighting for it. Many in the legislature think we will be content with seeing only 25% of our energy come from renewables in the coming decade. They think we'll be content in board rooms, discuss financing. They assume we'll be content donning suits and schmoozing all night in hopes of raising a few dollars to spend more time yelling upon deaf ears in hearing rooms at the Capitol. 

I refuse to be an idle environmentalist any longer. I refuse to be an environmentalist. I know, and we all know, that our health, the health of our community, the health of our economy, and the health of the Earth that we love, are all interconnected. If wish to see any of them prosper in the coming days, weeks, and years,
we need to stand up in revolutionary ways.

No more petitions. No more lobbying. No more conferences.

We have incredible power and now is our time.

"there's more to fight for than ever"

Tim DeChristopher at Powershift2011