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The climate justice movement also experienced a low point this year, though, when its most visible young leader, Tim DeChristopher, was sentenced to two years in prison for disrupting a federal oil and gas lease auction by peaceful means. Even though the auction was later shown to be illegal, DeChristopher’s case proceeded in a manner that made it clear that the government’s prosecutor sought to make an example of an activist who showed no remorse.

For his part, Tim saw it as a necessary action to protect his future from runaway climate change, and seemed ready to prove that his movement is unafraid of such retribution when he refused to apologize or take a plea deal. As he told Terry Tempest Williams in Orion recently, “… it’s important to make sure that the government doesn’t win in their quest to intimidate people … They’re trying to make an example out of me to scare other people into obedience.” The punishing protest is not unusual, and can result in long-term victories for those targeted, but that didn’t comfort Patrick Shea, DeChristopher’s lawyer, who said in a recent post that he’d witnessed “a miscarriage of justice, fairness, and what I believed America stood for.” ….