Kennedy, Jr says “the environment is under assault everywhere”
Robert Kennedy, Jr is warning that climate change will deliver “major disruptions” to both humanity and civilization and outlines what he feels are the necessary solutions.
Kennedy, Jr was featured on Yahoo Finance’s Influencers series with Andy Serwer on January 16. The president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, RFK, Jr describes himself on Twitter as a “resolute defender of the environment.”
When asked about the wildfires that have been ravaging Australia, Kennedy, Jr said that they are a “predictable byproduct” of climate change and spoke of his own experience having to evacuate his California home due to fires.
He said: “All of the modeling for climate change” points to future “storms on steroids, droughts, famine, the disappearance of the ice caps, the disappearance of the glaciers on every continent, and that there’s going to be major disruptions, not just to humanity, but ultimately, to civilization.”
Kennedy, Jr attributes the drastic changes to “our longtime deadly addiction to coal and oil.”
Later in the interview, Kennedy, Jr says he has a market-based approach on how to best deal with climate change.
“I believe that we should use market mechanisms, like, like carbon taxes, and the elimination of subsidies. I think that those are the things that would transition our economy, fast as from a coal-based economy.
“We ought to have a market-based economy that does what a market is supposed to do, which is to reward good behavior, which is efficiency, and punish bad behavior, which is inefficiency in ways.
“Right now, we have a market that is governed by rules that were written by the carbon incumbents to reward the dirtiest, filthiest, most poisonous, most toxic, most war-mongering fields from hell, rather than the cheap, clean, green, wholesome, and patriotic fields from heaven. We need to rationalize our marketplace so that it does the things that market is supposed to do, which is to create a society that we’re all proud of and that will sustain our children.”
The environmentalist adds that climate change is not a problem unique to the US, and that “the environment is under assault everywhere.”
Kennedy, Jr, the nephew of President Kennedy and son to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was, naturally, asked about his opinions regarding politics and climate change.
Kennedy, Jr says that he hasn’t made an official endorsement yet for the Democratic presidential nominee, but that he has close relationships with some of the contenders. However, he does say that all of the current Democratic contenders “have a better environmental platform than the current president.
“And I think all of them would do well on the environment.”
You can watch the entire Yahoo Finance Influencers interview with Robert Kennedy, Jr here: