Climate Hawk Tim DeChristopher: 'I Have Absolutely Nothing To Lose By Fighting Back'
Tim DeChristopher, the climate activist jailed by the Obama administration for disrupting a last-minute Bush administration oil auction, finds his strength by accepting the terrible reality of climate change.
In an interview recorded in May 2011 before his two-year jail term began in July of that year, DeChristopher told environmental activist and author Terry Tempest Williams that he was willing to be Bidder 70 at the Bureau of Land Management auction in Utah – willing to dedicate his life to fighting global warming through nonviolent direct action – the moment he learned that the window had already closed for humanity to avoid all of the terrible catastrophes of climate pollution:
TIM: I think part of what empowered me to take that leap and have that insecurity was that I already felt that insecurity. I didn’t know what my future was going to be. My future was already lost.TERRY: Coming out of college?
TIM: No. Realizing how fucked we are in our future.
TERRY: In terms of climate change.
TIM: Yeah. I met Terry Root, one of the lead authors of the IPCC report, at the Stegner Symposium at the University of Utah. She presented all the IPCC data, and I went up to her afterwards and said, “That graph that you showed, with the possible emission scenarios in the twenty-first century? It looked like the best case was that carbon peaked around 2030 and started coming back down.” She said, “Yeah, that’s right.” And I said, “But didn’t the report that you guys just put out say that if we didn’t peak by 2015 and then start coming back down that we were pretty much all screwed, and we wouldn’t even recognize the planet?” And she said, “Yeah, that’s right.” And I said: “So, what am I missing? It seems like you guys are saying there’s no way we can make it.” And she said, “You’re not missing anything. There are things we could have done in the ’80s, there are some things we could have done in the ’90s—but it’s probably too late to avoid any of the worst-case scenarios that we’re talking about.” And she literally put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m sorry my generation failed yours.” That was shattering to me.
TERRY: When was this?
TIM: This was in March of 2008. And I said, “You just gave a speech to four hundred people and you didn’t say anything like that. Why aren’t you telling people this?” And she said, “Oh, I don’t want to scare people into paralysis. I feel like if I told people the truth, people would just give up.” And I talked to her a couple years later, and she’s still not telling people the truth. But with me, it did the exact opposite. Once I realized that there was no hope in any sort of normal future, there’s no hope for me to have anything my parents or grandparents would have considered a normal future—of a career and a retirement and all that stuff—I realized that I have absolutely nothing to lose by fighting back. Because it was all going to be lost anyway.
DeChristopher also discussed a 2008 speech by Naomi Klein that noted that Barack Obama’s goals for climate change were centrist, that “even his pie-in-the-sky campaign promises were not enough.” “And so if the center is not good enough for our survival,” Klein argued, “and if Obama is a centrist, and will always be a centrist, then our job is to move the center.” So DeChristopher realized that “you have to go to the edge and push” :
I mean, with climate change, the center is this balancing point between the climate scientists on one side saying, “This is what needs to be done,” and ExxonMobil on the other. And so the center is always going to be less than what’s required for our survival.
Much of the conversation between DeChristopher and Williams involved the complexity of nonviolent resistance, about creating opposition without hatred. It’s easy to see what DeChristopher is fighting against – in particular the fossil-fuel interests that directly oppose action on climate change. But underlying that opposition is a wellspring of love. “This is what love looks like,” DeChristopher told the judge before receiving his prison sentence.
It took him a long time to grapple with the enormity of climate change. He dealt with despair and anger until he realized that there is great hope to be found in the traumatic change that is now inevitable for humanity:
It means that we’re going to be living through the most rapid and intense period of change that humanity has ever faced. And that’s certainly not hopeless. It means we’re going to have to build another world in the ashes of this one. And it could very easily be a better world. I have a lot of hope in my generation’s ability to build a better world in the ashes of this one. And I have very little doubt that we’ll have to. The nice thing about that is that this culture hasn’t led to happiness anyway, it hasn’t satisfied our human needs. So there’s a lot of room for improvement.
DeChristopher believes his generation can build a “humane world” that puts people’s well-being above the consumption of material goods:
I’m for a humane world. A world that values humanity. I’m for a world where we meet our emotional needs not through the consumption of material goods, but through human relationships. A world where we measure our progress not through how much stuff we produce, but through our quality of life – whether or not we’re actually promoting a higher quality of life for human beings. I don’t think we have that in any shape or form now. I mean, we have a world where, in order to place a value on human beings, we monetize it – and say that the value of a human life is $3 million if you’re an American, $100,000 if you’re an Indian, or something like that. And I’m for a world where we would say that money has value because it can make human lives better, rather than saying that money is the thing with value.
24 Hours of Reality
24 Hours of Reality will be broadcast live online from September 14 to 15, over 24 hours, representing 24 time zones and 13 languages.
The event begins in Mexico City at 7 pm local (8 pm EDT).
7 PM local, Saturday- Mexico City, Mexico
- Boulder, CO, USA
- Victoria, BC, Canada
- French Polynesia
- Kotzebue, AK, USA
- Hawaii, USA
INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE
7 PM local, Sunday- Tonga
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Solomon Islands
- Canberra, Australia
- Seoul, South Korea
- Beijing, China
- Jakarta, Indonesia
- New Delhi, India
- Islamabad, Pakistan
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Durban, South Africa
- London, United Kingdom
- Husavik, Iceland
- Cape Verde
- Ilulissat, Greenland
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- New York City, NY, USA
Olympic winter athletes fight climate change
Please join Protect Our Winters for a special evening with Olympian Gretchen Bleiler, pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones, skier Chris Davenport and Aspen Skiing Company’s Auden Schendler.
They’ll discuss climate change, winter sports, and why athletes are an important part of the solution.
Honorary co-hosts Rep. Jared Polis (CO), Sen. Mark Udall (CO), and Sen. Michael Bennet (CO).
League of Women Voters Launches 'People Not Polluters' Campaign
The League of Women Voters has launched a major, nationwide campaign in defense of the EPA’s work to give Americans clean air. The People Not Polluters campaign asks Americans and their elected officials to join the Clean Air Promise:
I promise to protect America’s children and families from dangerous air pollution. Because toxics and pollutants such as mercury, smog, carbon, and soot, cause thousands of hospital visits, asthma attacks, and even deaths, I will support clean air policies and other protections that scientists and public health experts have recommended to the EPA to safeguard our air quality.
Watch the campaign spot:
LWV is mobilizing its members to tell personal stories of the cost of asthma for children and families, including outreach to vulnerable populations like seniors, Latinos, and African Americans.
Power Shift 2011: Monday
Power Shift, the biennial youth climate movement summit, runs from Friday, April 15, to Monday, April 18.
10:00am – 11:30am Action: Make Big Polluters Pay
April 18th is Tax Day and we’re hitting the streets to send a clear message: “It’s time to end handouts to Big Oil. Make Polluters Pay and fund OUR future: a 100% clean energy future that looks out for everyone.”
12:00pm – 4:00pm Lobby Visits
We’ll march from our demonstration to Capitol Hill to bring our demands to Congress. With thousands of us converging on Capitol Hill, it will be one of the largest citizen visits ever!
Power Shift 2011: Saturday
Power Shift, the biennial youth climate movement summit, runs from Friday, April 15, to Monday, April 18.
9:00am – 1:00pm Movement Building Sessions: Training & Planning
People will come together regionally to meet one another, share stories and ideas, and plan collective efforts. We’ll practice and learn the fundamentals of grassroots organizing that will give us a strong foundation for campaign work.
1:00pm – 2:00pm Lunch
2:00pm – 6:00pm Clean Economy Canvass
Attendees will have the opportunity to help build the clean energy economy in Washington, DC. Participants will be trained in the best ways to engage friends and neighbors in energy efficiency work.
2:15pm – 3:15pm Workshop & Panels: Session 1
3:30pm – 4:30pm Workshop & Panels: Session 2
4:45pm – 5:45pm Workshop & Panels: Session 3
6:00pm – 7:30pm Dinner & Caucuses
During dinner, attendees will have the opportunity to meet with other folks to talk about how their identity has impacted their experiences throughout the weekend.
7:30pm – 11:00pm Keynote & Concert
We’ll reconvene in a keynote session to hear from more movement leaders. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and 350.org founder Bill McKibben are confirmed as keynote speakers, and more will be announced soon!
Power Shift 2011: Friday
Power Shift, the biennial youth climate movement summit, runs from Friday, April 15, to Monday, April 18.
2:00pm – 5:30pm Generation Waking Up
An optional activity, Generation Waking Up will help us launch Power Shift fired up and inspired to take action. Through music, exercises, dialogue, and video, we’ll explore the critical questions facing young people and society
6:30pm – 9:00pm Opening Keynote
Our opening keynote will set the stage for the Power Shift 2011—we’ll give an overview for the weekend and start to hear from movement leaders and climate and energy experts. Al Gore and Van Jones are confirmed as keynote speakers for the evening.
9:00pm – 12:00am Films Fueling the Energy Revolution
We’ll be showing a handful of films discussing and investigating environmental issues. These films will kick off the Reel Power film series scheduled to air throughout Power Shift 2011.
Public Opposition To Dismantling The EPA
The Natural Resources Defense Council holds a conference call briefing, beginning at 11 a.m., to discuss and release a survey on data that show strong public opposition to “dismantling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) updates to clean-up standards for carbon, smog and other pollution” proposed by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.
Patricipants- Peter Altman, climate campaign director of the Natural Resources Defense Council
- Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling
Contact: Leslie Anderson, 703-276-3256, [email protected]
Call-in, 800-860-2442; ask for the “EPA/Energy and Commerce Committee member surveys” news event. A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available at 4 p.m. February 10 online: http://www.nrdc.org
Briefing by Director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Center on Climate Change and National Security
The Pew Project on National Security, Energy & Climate cordially invites you to a briefing by Mr. Larry Kobayashi, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Center on Climate Change and National Security.
January 13, 2011 3:30pm—5:00pm
RSVP: Registration is required for the free event. Please send name, organization, phone and email to David Catarious, [email protected] by Jan. 11.
Founded in 2009, the charter of the CIA’s Center on Climate Change and National Security is not the science of climate change, but the national security impact of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts, and heightened competition for natural resources. The Center provides support to American policymakers as they negotiate, implement, and verify international agreements on environmental issues.
The Pew Charitable Trusts
901 E Street NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20004
Post-Cancun Update
The international community recently concluded the latest round of negotiations on an international climate change agreement. Despite significant hurdles, the negotiators made important progress by managing expectations and adopting a pragmatic and forward-looking approach.
The CSIS Energy and National Security Program invites you to a discussion with
- Jonathan Pershing, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change, U.S. Department of State
- Sarah O. Ladislaw, Senior Fellow, CSIS Energy and National Security Program
Mr. Pershing about his views on what was achieved in Cancun and what the main challenges are going forward.
Registration required. Please send your confirmation to [email protected].