A Necessary Good
Tim DeChristopher and the Defense of Necessity
by Jerry Elmer
Tim DeChristopher is the environmental and climate-change activist who was recently sentenced to two years in federal prison for an 
act of public, nonviolent civil disobedience. On December 19, 2008, DeChristopher disrupted a federal auction in Utah of oil and gas drilling lease rights. DeChristopher participated in the auction, openly and publicly, posing as a real bidder. His high bids won rights to 14 separate parcels totaling 22,500 acres of land, for $1.8 million. DeChristopher had no intention of paying; he had scooped the parcels as a means of making a dramatic public statement about the dangers of climate change. DeChristopher follows a long and noble tradition of civil disobedience that includes other practitioners such as Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (more…)
