Robert Kennedy Jr. Incents Us to Fight for Our Environmental Rights

by Lindsay Meyers

NEWS FLASH! The Arol Sea, the largest inland fresh body of water on earth except for the Great Lakes, is now a desert; The Sea of Isov, once the richest fishery on earth is now a biological wasteland; one fifth of Russia is now permanently un-inhabitable because of radiation contamina-tion. In Turkey, over 300 species have disap-peared from the Marmus River. In Bangkok, most people wear gas masks and out of a total population of 10 1/2 million, a child who reaches the age of six has permanently lost seven IQ points because of the density of air-borne lead contamination at ground level. In China, there are oxygen bars where people go to buy a breath of fresh air, and in Mexico City, people can legally only drive three and a half days a week due to smog aversion which kills over 10,000 people every year.

The United States could experience these problems too, if major corporations are allowed to continue to pollute our land, according to Robert Kennedy, Jr. who spoke to TEENSPEAK one night prior to a speaking engagement he had at The Bruce Museum. He said, "Companies like GE will build a spanking brand new factory and say that they are going to bring in 1500 new jobs to your community, raise the tax base, and all your community has to do is waive your environmental laws while GE dumps their toxic PCBs (polychlorinated biphenylf) into the river. And, if you don't give them permission to do it, then GE will threaten to provide jobs and dump their PCB's elsewhere."

While many corporations and government agencies seem to believe that economic prosperity cannot happen without pollution, Robert Kennedy angrily argues that is not the case. "Good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy," he said. He claims that a few years of pollution based prosperity can generate an instantaneous cash flow and the illusion of a prosperous economy, "but our children are going to pay for our joy ride. They are going to pay for the denuded landscapes and the huge clean up costs they simply won't be able to afford."