One thing is for certain, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is passionate
about the environment.
Kennedy, born into America’s most prominent political family, is
concerned about the fate of the environment. He cites the Bush
administration and lack of meaningful coverage by the media as just
two of the factors leading to the shape of the environment, Kennedy
told The Era in a telephone interview from his office in Tarrytown,
N.Y.
Kennedy will speak about “Our Environmental Destiny” in a talk
sponsored by the Bradford Creative and Performing Arts Center, the
last event of BCPAC’s season.
Kennedy’s talk will begin at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Bromeley Family
Theater, Blaisdell Hall, at the University of Pittsburgh at
Bradford.
His intrigue in the environment goes back a ways.
“I was interested in the environment when I was a little kid,”
said Kennedy, the third child of Robert F. and Ethel Skakel
Kennedy.
Then, in 1984, he went to work for a group of commercial
fishermen on the Hudson River.
If interest in the environment trickled through his veins
before, it started rushing when he became involved in Riverkeeper.
Kennedy is now the chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper,
which fights the pollution in America’s waterways.
Since then, there has been 400 successful lawsuits against those
who have polluted the water.
“Today, the Hudson is the international model for protection …
it was a miraculous recovery.”
What was once an “open sewer” now has strong spawning stock and
migratory fish, he said.
He’s kept a watchful eye on government policies and how they
affect the environment.
The current administration has surrounded itself with “lobbyists
who are the worst polluters in the country” to work in such
departments as energy, agriculture and interior.
“They are the worst of the worst of the worst polluters.”
Kennedy said that the environmental problem reaches far beyond
political parties, beyond Republican versus Democrat.
“The Republican Party is actually strong in conservation” dating
back to Teddy Roosevelt, Kennedy said.
But it is the Republicans who have put into motion policies that
have affected the environment in recent years.
In particular, the Clean Air Act which was abolished under Bush
has not helped certain medical conditions as asthma, which three of
Kennedy’s sons suffer from.
He is hoping for an environment that is healthy for his own
children as well as his children’s children.
People have an “obligation to our children” to give them the
same environment and good health “our parents gave us.”
To reach that point is not an easy task.
One entity to blame is the “negligent and indolent press not
giving the issue adequate coverage.”
The news stations now have “no ideology but their own
pocketbooks.”
At one point, they were obligated to serve the public’s
interest. That was erased during the Reagan administration.
Now, entertainment news rules the airways.
“We are the most entertained and least informed” nation, Kennedy
said.
And from that is a disconnect between reality and what people
think.
For instance, the fish population is not as safe as one would
hope.
“Every fish in the state is contaminated,” Kennedy said of fish
in Pennsylvania.
Even though people can look up advisories in a book about the
status of fish, they still “don’t make the connection between the
advisory and White House policy.”
A clean environment is a keystone to the infrastructure of a
community, he said.
That knowledge, in the end, will empower the people in a
democracy to make decisions about the future.
“You can’t have a democracy if you have an uninformed
public.”
To that end, the public can never make an informed decision when
the media still questions whether global warming exists, he
said.
Even though scientists have “agreed it exists, is upon us and
now will be catastrophic,” the fact that the media paints it as
doubtful leads the public to believe global warming is a
mirage.
Kennedy referred to scientists hired by companies as
“biotitutes” – phony think tanks in Washington, D.C., who persuade
the press and the public” to think a certain way.
But while Kennedy has been critical of some industries as oil
and timber, he said not all is bad.
“It depends, it’s all site specific,” he said, adding that those
that are in sustainable areas are better tolerated. “It’s different
all over the country. I’m not against oil; I’m not against
timber.”
He is against leaving the land in bad condition.
“You don’t drain the pond to catch the fish.”
Tickets for Kennedy’s talk are still available by contacting the
BCPAC office.
