Environmental activist talks to student group

Members of GreenUR organized a Skype video call with Tim DeChristopher, an environmentalist who was recently convicted of two felonies, to get students thinking about civil disobedience in the face of the climate crisis.

A group of 15 students met in the Queally Hall auditorium at 5 p.m. on April 14, to talk with DeChristopher about what can be learned from his conviction.

DeChristopher was found guilty on charges of making false statements and violating oil and gas leasing acts when he bid and won almost $1.8 billion worth of land in a 2008 auction in an attempt to prevent oil drillings.

As a result of his intervention, many of the parcels were categorized as land that could never be drilled into.

But DeChristopher's conviction raised issues that extended beyond those of environmentalism. There were certain details, such as the environmental implications of the auction, that the jury was prevented from hearing during his trial, which inspired people to begin asking questions about the U.S. jury system, he said during the conversation.

"The role of the jury has changed drastically since our legal system was founded," he said. "The jury was originally the conscience of the community, according to the founding fathers. Today, juries are told their job is to weigh the facts of the case, and not the justice of the law. That's a much smaller role than they used to play."

Lucy Barrett, a sophomore and agriculture chair of GreenUR, said the biggest things she took from the conversation was not only how disheartening the constraints of the legal system are, but also how one person can truly make a difference through non-violent means.

DeChristopher said it would likely take many more to join in him in making themselves vulnerable to get others to grasp the urgency of environmental issues. "Stories are the most powerful thing," he said. "No large-scale catastrophe seems really effective at waking people up. All those milestones keep passing us by and nothings happening."

Jerry Giordano, president of GreenUR, fronted the effort in contacting DeChristopher and said he hoped to use DeChristopher's story as a powerful model to engage students understanding the impacts of civil disobedience.

Contact reporter Liz Aquilino at liz.aquilino@richmond.edu