Kennedy addresses environmental issues at MSU

Missouri State University's 2010 Public Affairs Conference wrapped up Friday morning with a presentation by one of the country's leading environmental activists and attorneys.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke to a crowd of thousands at JQH Arena as part of the annual conference, which this year carries the title "The New Economy: Peril and Promise."

Kennedy's speech, "Our Environmental Destiny," covered the multiple ways he says the nation's current energy system is flawed, and how it can be fixed. He said that protecting the environment is about more than just being green.

"We protect the environment because nature is the infrastructure of our communities," he said, nay-saying the notion that people must choose between a healthy environment and a healthy economy. "In 100 percent of situations, good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy."

He pointed to countries such as Iceland, which was totally dependent on imported oil and coal for energy before converting to geothermal power in the 1970s and 1980s. The result, he said, was an economy that grew from the poorest in Europe to the fourth-richest in the world before the recent recession.

Kennedy said the United States, through its dependence on foreign fossil fuels, is "funding both sides of the war on terror." He pointed to the "solar belt" region in the desert southwest as a source of solar power and North Dakota, which he said is the windiest place in the world at sea level, as a prime source of wind energy.

The issue, he added, is combating oil and coal providers - which he dubbed "carbon cronies" - and the scientists, who he dubbed "biostitutes," paid to create scientific evidence against global warming,

He advocated for a national power grid, similar to the national telecommunications grid created in the mid-1990s. He also said that those who create their own sources of energy through water, wind and solar power, should be able to sell that power back to power companies at market value, noting that no state in the nation allows for the sale of extra energy to the grid at market prices.  

"That's not free-market capitalism," Kennedy said.[[In-content Ad]]