Climate activist DeChristopher brings to

November 1, 2013
Climate activist DeChristopher brings to
Vermont his call to halt fossil-fuel development
Nationally known climate activist Tim DeChristopher brings his call to halt
fossil-fuel development to Vermont
Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher speaks between appearances at the University of Vermont on Monday. /
GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS
Written by
Joel Banner Baird
Free Press Staff
Writer
Tim DeChristopher wants us to ponder the going rate for fossil fuels.
Three years ago, he attended an auction in Utah for gas and oil leases
on public lands — and spontaneously joined the bidding.
The misadventure landed him a two-year jail sentence and national recognition as an
imaginative, principled activist.
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Monday night, at a talk at University
of Vermont, the 31-year-old Harvard
Divinity School student urged
environmentalists to abandon the
movement’s well-worn path of
“political expediency.”
And do what?
Get radical, DeChristopher urged:
Dismantle an industry that mines an
ever-more scarce (and climatically
dangerous) commodity.
Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher (center) speaks
between appearances at the University of Vermont on Monday.
/ GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS
Earlier in the day, sitting around a
table with a small group at Billings
Library, DeChristopher said investors
in fossil fuels, by neglecting the long-term societal (and planetary) cost of burning fossil fuels,
are enabling accelerated, even more costly climate change.
A question arose: What about the southbound pipeline extension planned by Vermont Gas
Systems?
Stop it, DeChristopher advised: Even relatively economical and relatively clean-burning natural
gas is delaying more meaningful steps toward renewable energy.
“We’re in a position now where every fossil-fuel development should be blocked until we have a
national energy plan. Until we have a serious response to climate change — because there’s no
end in sight right now,” he said.
Gov. Peter Shumlin has responded to this argument in the past by saying the development of
renewable energy already is underway in Vermont and across the country, and would be
unaffected by the availability of natural gas.
DeChristopher counters that Vermont’s prohibition against fracking (passed last year in the
legislature) should extend to the sources of the natural gas that is piped into the state.
“Building a pipeline in this state that transports fracked natural gas is not only immoral, but it’s
short-sighted,” he said Monday.
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He continued: “Unless we draw the line now and say we want systemic change — that we won’t
accept fracking anywhere — unless we draw the line, then places like Vermont are just waiting
for their turn. They’re next.
“If we don’t stand up for those communities, then there’s going to be no one to stand up for this
one,” he said.
Vermont Gas concedes that some of the gas it buys from Canada comes from hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, but maintains that fracking can be done in an environmentally sensitive
way.
Furthermore, says Eileen Simollardes, vice president for supply and regulatory affairs at
Vermont Gas, fracking is used to extract propane and increasingly fuel oil, so stopping the
Addison County pipeline won’t stop fracking.
DeChristopher believes that a more thorough, public examination of cost-benefit will speed the
industries’ dissolution.
In his 2010 bidding war, DeChristopher’s act of civil disobedience drove prices beyond credible
limits, and ultimately “won” for DeChristopher a $1.7 million development package.
Auction officials quickly learned that DeChristopher had no connection to the petroleum industry,
and furthermore, had no money to pay for the leases.
The following year, he was convicted of felony charges of false representation and for violating
the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act. DeChristopher was sentenced to two
years in prison.
In his statement to the court, he summarized his rationale: “to stand in the way of an illegitimate
auction that threatened my future.”
He emerged to found “Peaceful Uprising,” a nonprofit climate-action group that promotes
nonviolent protests against expansion of fossil-fuel development.
A film, “Bidder 70” (the number refers to DeChristopher’s bidding paddle at the auction), is in
wide circulation.
His appearance at University of Vermont was a part of UVM’s Energy Action Seminar Series,
hosted by the Clean Energy Fund.
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DeChristopher’s evening talk was a featured event at the 2013 Renewable Energy Vermont
conference and expo, which continues all day Tuesday.
Other sponsors for the talk include VPIRG, Vermont Natural Resources Council and
350Vermont.
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