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Robert F. Kennedy was greeted with a standing
ovation on Wednesday at Campbell Hall on the OSU
campus. A Harvard graduate, Kennedy is a professor at
the Pace University School of Law, senior attorney for
the National Resources Defense Council, and chief
prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper Fund.
More than two hundred people came to hear him
talk about his new book, Crimes Against Nature, and
the Bush administration's irresponsible
environmental policies.
Kennedy blamed the public's ignorance of
President Bush's environmental abuse on the timidity
of the national press and the White House Press Corps,
whom he referred to as "stenographers."
One of the problems Kennedy discussed is the
particulate emissions from 1100 coal burning plants
operating illegally in the country, causing acid rain,
sterilization of lakes, accumulation of ozone, and
mercury poisoning. Effects of air pollution are
thought to be responsible for as many as 5000 deaths
per year and a recent increase in cases of asthma in
children. Lawsuits from the Clinton era against many
of these plants were ordered to be dropped by Bush
after he received a total of more that 100 million
dollars from coal companies. Kennedy expressed
frustration that corporations can buy their way out of
free market controls by paying off politicians, and
maintained that coal plant emissions could be
drastically reduced if plant owners were to spend only
one percent of their profits on technology to allow
for cleaner burning.
