Timothy Mansfield DeChristopher (born November 18, 1981) is an American climate activist and co-founder of the environmental group Peaceful Uprising. In December 2008, he protested a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and gas lease auction of 116 parcels of public land in Utah's redrock country by successfully bidding on 14 parcels of land (totaling 22,500 acres) for $1.8 million with no intent to pay for them. DeChristopher was removed from the auction by federal agents and taken into custody, eventually serving 21 months in prison.
Saying they had been rushed into auction with insufficient environmental and scientific review, the United States Department of the Interior canceled many of the leases shortly after the auction and a subsequent court injunction.
Early life
DeChristopher was born on November 18, 1981, in West Milford, West Virginia and grew up in Pittsburgh. After graduating from Shady Side Academy, he attended Arizona State University, and moved to Utah in 2005 where he worked as a wilderness guide for troubled and at-risk youth. As a guide, DeChristopher emphasized self-reliance skills and respect for the natural world. His interaction with at-risk youth groups led him to reject what he viewed as a political and economic system that concentrates wealth in the hands of a privileged few while ostracizing vulnerable and impoverished citizens in the U.S. This conviction later inspired him to study economics at the University of Utah, where he received a bachelor's degree in 2009.
Activism
As an avid reader, DeChristopher developed an interest in the writers and philosophies that have shaped U.S. and global social movements. His perspective on the American environmental movement highlights the critical role that civil disobedience has played in social movements throughout history, including the civil rights and women's suffrage movements. DeChristopher's acts of civil disobedience have been compared to those of Rosa Parks by the media, but DeChristopher has said that his actions are more comparable to those of Alice Paul, who escalated the women's rights movement by forcing the government to publicly arrest women protesting on the steps of the capitol and lending visibility to an obscured social movement.
DeChristopher's actions garnered national attention for later government auctions of public land leases in the final days of the Bush administration. In January 2009, Judge Ricardo Urbina of the District of Columbia federal district court temporarily halted the sale of 77 parcels, citing BLM violations of environmental laws protecting air quality and historic preservation. In February 2009, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar shelved 77 disputed lease parcels – including some on which DeChristopher had bid in 2008 — and criticized Bush administrators for conducting a "rush review" of the contested lands.
DeChristopher has expressed the need for similar tactics to end mountaintop removal mining in his home state of West Virginia. In 2013, he and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video showing support for Chelsea Manning, and DeChristopher spoke in the University of Vermont's Ira Allen Chapel. In a 2014 climate change protest on Wall Street, DeChristopher expressed his view that "[b]eing serious about tackling the climate crisis means we have to be willing to confront corporate capitalism and the system that is driving that crisis."
After his release from jail in 2013, DeChristopher attended Harvard Divinity School and obtained a graduate degree. He settled with his family in Rhode Island. DeChristopher is a founder of the Climate Disobedience Center which provides advice and assistance to climate activists engaged in civil disobedience. He participated in the No Coal, No Gas direct action campaign to hasten the end of fossil fuel usage in New England. DeChristopher advocates for non-violent direct action to address environmental issues.
Trial
In a 2009 indictment DeChristopher was charged with two felonies: violations of the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act and making false statements. He faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and $750,000 in fines.