Today’s Good News: Utah Student Saves Wilderness From Drilling
You’ve no doubt heard of the Bush plan to “drill, baby, drill” near Moab and other wilderness areas in Utah. One clever student got in the way. Democracy Now had the exclusive story just before Christmas. The student, Tim De Christopher, waltzed into the auction held by the Bureau of Land Management last Friday to sell oil and gas drilling rights to nearly 150,000 acres of wilderness in southern Utah. He posed as a potential bidder and bid hundreds of thousands of dollars on parcels of the land, driving up prices and winning some 22,000 acres for himself, without any intention of paying for them. Some of the land he won is the most sensitive of the wilderness areas, and it’s now beyond the reach of the oil and gas companies for a while.
DeChristopher was arrested, though released on bond, and may be going to trial soon. He’s been heartened by the support he’s received from around the world. He noted that”for all the problems that people can talk about in this country and for all the apathy…America is still very much the kind of place that when you stand up for what is right, you never stand alone. And that’s been really powerful for me to witness.”
Of course, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get that support if he hadn’t stepped up to stop the sale. Describing how he came to have that paddle in his hand, DeChristopher said, “I’ve seen the need for more serious action by the environmental movement and to protect a livable future for all of us. I’ve seen that need for a long time. And frankly, I’ve been hoping that someone would step up, and someone would come out and be the leader, and someone would put themselves on the line, and make the sacrifices necessary to get us on a path to a more livable future. And I guess I just couldn’t wait any longer for that someone to come out there, and had to accept the fact that that someone might be me.” Now that’s what I’m talking about.
Read the whole story here.
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