SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4 News) - When a federal judge ruled this week that 27 year old Utah activist Tim DeChristopher can not argue that it was a necessity to break the law to stop Utah oil and gas lease auctions, he lost his major legal defense.
On Friday, he told ABC 4's Ross Becker that he is disappointed, but he is not giving up. He said, "at this point the necessity defense was probably the best one, but there are still other possibilities."
In December of 2008, DeChristopher walked into a Bureau of Land Management auction and began placing bogus bids on oil and gas leases near some of Utah's national parks. He placed millions of dollars of bids personally and he increased the prices on other leases won by other bidders. It was all bogus. He was protesting the sale and he is claiming now that he had right to do it as an act of civil disobedience. He claims it was a necessity to disrupt the auction in order to expose a corrupt system, save our natural heritage, and stop the threat of climate change.
"I saw my opportunity to stand in the way of this injustice and i could not turn my back on that opportunity and i decided it was worth it", he said.
DeChristopher now faces federal charges and up to 10 years in a federal prison if convicted and when he lost a major legal battle on Monday, he admits his options are narrowing. "The laws don't give any voice to the victims of climate change and that are not taking that into consideration when making these really important decisions", he said.
But, as much as DeChristopher wants to slow down climate change, he also wants to stay out of prison. Becker asked him why not just accept a prison sentence, write a book and make your point. He said with a laugh "I guess that's kinda the last case option for me....I thought about the consequences and decided it was worth it and I still believe that but obviously I have no desire to be a martyr."
He and his lawyer say the fight goes on to expose the climate change crisis, but he also says he feels betrayed by one of the world's major promoters of the global warming issue, Al Gore. DeChristopher says Gore is getting too political and compromising too much by supporting a new bill in Congress that asks for smaller decreases in greenhouse gases that he did last year. Last year Gore was advocating civil disobedience, he said, to stop global warming. Now Gore is backing off and DeChristopher says that's wrong.
There is no date set for DeChristopher's trial.
