RFK Jr. urges environmental advocacy

By Cara Kelly

Vote early: the advice from a man with an intrinsic link to politics and a heart-felt passion for the environment to all citizens in the mountains of North Carolina.

Why is voting, and more importantly voting early, an exceedingly important responsibility for North Carolinians?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivers a speech at Appalachian State University last Thursday. Photo by Cara Kelly

The answer is simple for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; it is the easiest and most efficient way for people concerned about the environment to ensure its protection and future prosperity.

In a lecture last Thursday at the Farthing Auditorium at Appalachian State University, the environmental advocate whose family’s name is synonymous with politics for most Americans, spoke about the inner workings of environmental law and advocacy in D.C.

As the chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeepers and the president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, Kennedy said he was honored to speak on behalf of the newly appointed Upper Watauga Riverkeeper Donna Lisenby and the affiliate organizations in the High Country.

“There are 14 Riverkeepers in North Carolina, one of highest number of Riverkeepers in one state in country,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy explained the history of the alliance, as it began on the Hudson River in the 1960s, and its transition into a significant environmental protection service in the modern day.

Originating as a reaction to the poor condition of water quality in the Hudson River, Kennedy recanted the tale of blue-collar workers who banded together to fight against the large corporations, which were making the public waterways hazardous.

“People who lived on the Hudson River in 1966 – factory workers, carpenters, fishermen - they were people, who for the most part, had little expectation that they would ever see Yellowstone or other national parks, but the Hudson River was their natural resource,” he said. “After the Penn Central Railroad began vomiting pollution into the river, all the people came together. They saw something they thought they owned, the purity of the Hudson’s waters, was being robbed from them by large companies without their control.”

Citizens who resided by the river began examining their options, and after submitting grievances to the government with no relief, their attention was drawn elsewhere.

The disturbed citizens stumbled across an act that had “been on the book for 80 years but had never been enforced.”

“The 1888 Rivers and Harbors Act had made it illegal to pollute any waterway in America,” he said.

The group of concerned citizens used the law and enforced the first penalty in U.S. history for pollution and eventually shut down the Penn Central Pipeline that had been killing fish and making the river unusable for recreation.

The group received $2,000 in remediation for the crime and used it to purchase a boat to patrol the river, the beginning of the Riverkeepers.

In 1984, Kennedy became the prosecuting attorney for the group and has since won more than 400 legal actions and received over $4.5 million in remediation, all of which are used to find the organization.

“Today as a result of our work, the Hudson [River] is a rich water system, producing more biomass per gallon, and the last major river system left that has all of the native fish of the river.”

In addition to a brief history lesson, Kennedy discussed the current difficulties of environmental activism during the last presidential term and the future with an impending election.

“People ask me all the time about this campaign, what are the big issues. One is health care and one is energy,” he said. “All the other issues, once you say energy, everything else is all tied up in how we use energy in this country.”

Kennedy drove home the need for a domestically produced form of energy that is safe for the environment, citing the destruction of mountaintops for coal removal and the waste and foreign policy issues that surround the importation of oil.

“Today, we don’t need to abolish carbon in this country to realize it is the principal drag on the American economy. In order to buy oil from nations that don’t share our thoughts, we are exporting 700 billion to keep up with this deadly crack addiction to oil,” he said.

To a round of applause, Kennedy pointed out the importance of the $700 billion number.

“You know the significance of that amount. The con-men up on Wall Street that have driven our economy into ruins just received that in a bailout. All we have to do is stop using oil for a year we can pay back the whole thing in one year. It’s chump change if we can stop using oil,” he said.

Kennedy also enlightened many who were unaware of the inner-workings of D.C. and energy producers.

“Today, we give $1.3 trillion in subsidies to the oil industries. We give probably around a trillion, although no one has ever really added it up to the coal industry,” he said.

Kennedy argued that there are other options for U.S. energy production, including increased use of electricity made by fields of solar and wind cells in the deserts of the southwestern states.

“Those subsidies have been the principle impediment to much more efficient and abundant sources of energy, local indigenous sources of energy. If you look at nations that have reduced carbon in the economies, they have experienced increased prosperity,” he said.

Citing Brazil, Iceland and Sweden, Kennedy made a strong case for reducing carbon emissions.

In conclusion, Kennedy asserted the easiest and most effective form of advocacy for people who are busy with their everyday lives is to vote for politicians who share their views on environmental policy.