 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center | |||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
 |
Youth
Leaders in Action |
Earth
the focus of rally
Environmental policies blasted by Robert Kennedy Jr.
|
||
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told local high school students and others Tuesday that he sees President Bush as the worst environmental president in history.
"If the public knew about it, they would rise up and revolt against this president," he said, adding that the media negligence has kept the country in the dark.
Kennedy is a frequent and harsh critic of Bush environmental policy, which he says is undercutting 30 years of progress for the benefit of Bush campaign donors in the coal, oil and utilities industries.
An environmental activist and senior attorney with the National Resource Defense Council, Kennedy is also author of "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy." He spoke at a pro-environment, anti-Bush rally at the old County Courthouse on the Pearl Street Mall.
The event was sponsored by the Boulder group Youth Leaders in Action, and it attracted about 500 people.
Many in the crowd held white signs, each referring to a different Bush Administration legal action that allegedly compromised the environment. Youth Leaders in Action, with help from the Sierra Club, made 300 of the signs.
Ian Shannon, a 16-year-old Boulder High School junior, held one that read: "Bush's 2005 budget phases out funding for resources on abrupt climate change."
Kennedy said the Bush administration has rolled back 400 environmental laws, most of them rule changes that Kennedy called "secret, stealth attacks."
He cited the EPA's declaration last week that fish in 19 states are unsafe to eat because of mercury pollution, of which old coal-fired power plants are a major source. Recent changes to the Clean Air Act allow 1,100 aging coal plants to put off indefinitely the installation of filters to cut pollution, he said.
He said his own blood had three times more mercury than federal safety guidelines. He said a doctor told him that if he were a pregnant woman, it would reduce the baby's IQ 5 points.
|
||
Kennedy said the public isn't aware of the Bush environmental record because corporate media have slashed investigative-reporting staff and prefer stories appealing to "prurient interests," such as the Kobe Bryant and Scott Peterson trials. He called the White House press corps "stenographers."
"Polluters make themselves rich by making everyone else poor," he said. "It's a way of handing the cost of our economic prosperity to our children."
Among those children were Isa Roske, 16, who with her mother Tamara founded Youth Leaders in Action.
"We are part of the planet. What we do to the planet, we do to ourselves," she said. "We have to start right now."
Tava Sieh, 17, also addressed the crowd.
"What is the price of clean air and water? In the end, there is no 'someone else.' It's all our back yard," she said.
When Kennedy finished speaking, the crowd walked to a field next to Boulder High School, where California photographer John Quigley of Spectral Q arranged them for photos taken from a helicopter.
Quigley said he worked out the theme of the 200-foot by 150-foot design the previous evening with help from high-school students. Participants were placed to spell out "Nov. 2, we decide" and to depict a set of scales with the Earth on one side and "$" on the other.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Todd Neff at (303) 473-1327 or nefft@dailycamera.com.
Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera. All Rights Reserved.
Original URL: http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/environment/article/0,1713,BDC_2434_3270035,00.html
