Robert Kennedy Jr. on Fracking, Media, and Changing Light Bulbs

by Maureen Nandini Mitra – June 17, 2011

Americans Should be More Involved in Politics, Says Outspoken Environmentalist

An attorney specializing in environmental law, founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance, and a writer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a passionate environmental activist for nearly three decades. At home, he has fought numerous legal battles to keep New York’s rivers clear of pollutants. Abroad, he has helped indigenous tribes in South America and Canada negotiate treaties to protect their traditional lands. Not one to shy away from direct action, he was arrested in 2001 for trespassing on an US Navy bombing range on Vieques Island in Pureto Rico and had to spend 30 days in prison.

Photo by ‬Ian UmedaKennedy during a talk at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Thursday, June 16.

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The third of 11 children of Robert Kennedy, the senator and presidential candidate who was assassinated in 1968, the outspoken RFK Jr. has often courted controversy — most (in)famously by writing controversial articles on childhood vaccinations based on dubious science, and by alleging that the 2004 elections were “stolen.” In 2005 he upset environmentalists by opposing a wind farm project on Nantucket Sound where his family owns land, despite being a strong advocate for renewable energy. (Kennedy is still against the project that he claims will put hundreds of commercial fishermen on the South Cape out of work.)

Notwithstanding these indiscretions, RKF Jr. continues to be an important voice in the environmental justice movement in the US. In 2010 he was named one of Time.com’s “Heroes of the Planet,” for his success in helping Riverkeeper restore the Hudson River in New York.

Kennedy is touring the country to promote The Last Mountain, a documentary about a local Appalachia community’s battle against coal giant Massey Energy in which he features as a key character.  During a brief interview with me in San Francisco last night, he spoke about the film, fracking, civil disobedience and changing light bulbs. An excerpt.

Maureen Nandini Mitra: After this movie, what's the next step? Suppose it (mountaintop removal mining) gets banned, we still aren't at a stage where we can get out of coal tomorrow, as we should ideally do. It would mean there would be increased coal mining in other regions like say, the Powder River Basin. The department of interior recently opened up that area for 750 million to 2 billion tons of coal mining. Are you thinking about that?

Robert F Kennedy Jr: I don't think that that is going to be the principal threat. I think you are going to see a shift from strip mining to deep mining, which means a lot more jobs in West Virginia. And then you are going to see an increased cost in coal which mean that other alternatives are gonna become more and more attractive, including wind and solar. And in some cases, natural gas.

Which brings me to my next question, which is, do you support the use of natural gas as a transition fuel?

Well, unfortunately, the natural gas industry has been reckless and irresponsible and dishonest with the American public and they've lost much of their credibility. I think a year or two years ago I would have said that natural gas was a really strong alternative to coal and a very, very good local fuel we've found. (There’s) about 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in our country. But because of the lack of candor by the industry, because of their reckless behavior, it's unclear whether we can get that natural gas out of the ground without causing cataclysmic environmental damage.

What do you think about the Frac Act (Fracking Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act)? Do you think disclosing chemicals used in fracking would make any difference?

Well the Frac Act is part of it. Really we need to restore the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act protections that were, you know, waived for fracking during the Bush administration. That's the starting point.

How effective do you think are legal curbs? You cited Massey and how they continue to make these violations despite laws being in place.

Well if there's not enforcement the law becomes a joke. So you don't just need strong laws, you need really rigorous enforcement.

But in this case, what it seems to me, is that Massey does the calculation and says, ‘ok, we can pay this fine and it'll be cheaper than actually...’

(interrupts) They don't even have to pay fines. They've so captured the agency (state EPA) that the agency doesn't even consider fining them. Each one of those 67,000 violations has a potential liability of $31,000. So you are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in damages that they should be owing to the public. But they are able to escape that liability and make it appear as if coal is somehow cheap. But that's because they are not paying the penalties of their criminal behavior.

Climate activists like Al Gore and Bill McKibben have called for civil disobedience as a way to stop global climate change or reduce the pace of it. You've done some of that yourself when you got arrested in Vieques, right?

Right, my children were in West Virginia this weekend to get arrested to protest mountaintop removal. I went down and marched to support them.

So why hasn't the direct action movement emerged as a strong movement. Why aren't people going out there getting arrested?

They are. They are. There’ve been more people arrested in West Virginia than were arrested in Selma or during the entire civil rights movement. The problem is the press is broken. They are not covering it. It’s the media that really is the big problem in our country. The media and campaign finance reform.

You know, we had thousands of people marching in West Virginia this weekend. We've had hundreds and hundreds being arrested, yet nobody's aware of it. Nobody's aware of mountaintop removal because the media's not doing its job.

So how do you get to that point where we don't rely on paid advertising anymore? I mean one of the models is public funded journalism but it’s really hard to gather funds. Do you have any ideas?

Well I would say, you know, partially we should be restoring the fairness doctrine so the airwaves once again belong to the public and the broadcasters can be licensed to use them only with the provision that they use them to promote public interest and to advance American democracy.

I think that the fairness doctrine should apply to cable and satellite media. You know if you have a printing press you can write anything you want. That's freedom of the press. But if you are using the public airwaves you have an obligation to the public. We should have the same kind of laws that they have in Canada that makes it illegal to lie on the news. That would shut down FOX News overnight and most of talk radio.

How much time and energy do you think climate campaigners should spend now on adaptation vs. mitigation strategies in terms of climate change? We talk a lot about mitigating climate change, but the fact is that there is a certain amount that the temperature is going to rise to and we need to think about adapting.

I think we should be thinking about transitioning to wind and solar very, very quickly. That's what we should be doing.

What steps would you recommend consumers take to slow down climate change?

They should get involved in politics. That's what they should do. It's more important to change your politician than your light bulb.

(The Last Mountain opened Bay Area theaters yesterday. Check it out!)

Maureen Nandini Mitra, Managing Editor, Earth Island Journal.
In addition to her work at the Journal, Maureen is a columnist for The Faster Times and writes for several other magazines and online publications in the US and India. A journalism graduate from Columbia University, her work has appeared in the San Francisco Public Press, The New Internationalist, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, The Caravan and Down to Earth.

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