Tim DeChristopher

Watch Tim DeChristopher's talk at the June 2015 Waterkeeper Conference in Boulder, Colorado. 

Since its inception, the Annual Waterkeeper Conference has been the cornerstone of our movement.  The conference educates, inspires, and energizes individual Waterkeeper organizations and strengthens their fight for clean water. As the Waterkeeper movement increases its global presence, the annual conference becomes increasingly important as a way to keep Waterkeeper organizations connected, to maintain the unique Waterkeeper identity, and to increase the effectiveness of the individual organizations.

I recently attended a conference in Claremont, CA called Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization.  The gathering had over 1500 very smart people who spend a lot of time thinking about the fundamental shifts necessary in our society.  Over the course of the weekend, I ended up having a very similar conversation with several different people, so I figured it is worth sharing that conversation here.

The context of these conversations is the common and vital question of what will be necessary to awaken more people to the fundamental flaws of our industrial civilization and motivate them to make drastic shifts.  The frequent assertion is that people will only wake up when they are hit by a serious disaster that rattles them out of their apathy.  As long as people are at least minimally comfortable, they will hold on to their current paradigm until some kind of hardship makes it untenable.

The award winning documentary film, Bidder 70, shares the story of Tim DeChristopher blocking an illegal Utah Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Oil and Gas lease auction, through years of postponed trails, ongoing organizing work, and the trial. The film concludes with his sentencing and being immediately removed from the court.  For his civil disobedience, Tim was sentenced to two years in federal prison. He was released on April 21, 2013 after being incarcerated for 21 months.

"And when you consider that weeks after DeChristopher bid on his 13 parcels, a federal judge in essence agreed with him and blocked the sale of all the parcels, DeChristopher's prosecution becomes even more troubling. Add to that the fact that the Obama Administration's Dept of Interior said the overall sale was improper and pulled all the parcels from auction and DeChristopher's prosecution borders on absurd. DeChristopher's defense team was barred from bringing either of these facts to the attention of the jury in arguing their case. There's something radically wrong with this picture."  Robert Redford

Bidder 70 was produced by Beth & George Gage, and has won 20 major film festival awards.

• Visit the official Bidder 70 film site
• Watch Bidder70 on Netflix
• Watch Bidder 70 on iTunes
• Watch Bidder 70 on Amazon Instant Video
• Buy the DVD (Amazon)
• Host a community screening

Local Screenings
I am presently studying at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA.  If you would like to hold a Bidder 70 screening in the Greater Boston area, please let us know. FORM LINK? I may be able to attend and hold a Q&A session following the film.

Watch the official Bidder 70 trailer below.