ASHLEY EVANS STAFF WRITER
The United States needs to build a national marketplace for energy and begin using the technology it already has to preserve energy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a crowded Neumann Auditorium Thursday night.
Over 700 students, faculty, staff and community members listened to Kennedy speak about energy and the environment as part of Wartburg’s Commission on Mission Service Symposia.
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, focused on the idea that good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy.
“[Some people say] the time has come in our country where we have to choose between economic prosperity on the one hand and environmental protection on the other. And that,” he said, “is a false statement.”
The way to unite the two, Kennedy said, is to create a true, a free marketplace to encourage efficiency and eliminate waste. Believing a free marketplace is the most efficient anddemocratic way to distribute the resources of the country, Kennedy wants the government to install a smart grid, an idea used by utilities all over the world.
The grid would help eliminate peak demand of energy by turning off idle sources of power in houses for short periods of time.
“There are so many kinds of phantom charges in your houses that are sucking all the electricity away that you don’t even care about, that you don’t know about,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy believes that changing the grid so it becomes an open place to buy and sell energy will help the country’s economic issues. An investment in the environment, he said, is an investment in infrastructure and a way to ensure the economic vitality of this generation and beyond.
One major impediment the country must overcome before prosperity can be reached, Kennedy said, is to replace the country’s “archaic and under-designed” transmission system so new forms of energy can be transported and delivered.
Another impediment he mentioned was government officials who treat the planet and its resources as if it were a business liquidation.
“We can generate an instantaneous cash flow and the illusion of a prosperous economy, but our children are going to pay for our joy ride. And they are going to pay for … poor health and huge clean up costs,” Kennedy said.
Other topics Kennedy focused on included global warming, wind energy and electric cars.
As the chairman of WaterKeeper Alliance who has worked with RiverKeeper, a program that helps to protect the country’s water, Kennedy elaborated on the high mercury levels in water across the nation, claiming Americans are living in “a science- fiction nightmare.”
Kennedy said it is an exciting time for all Americans, and the way to solve our economic issues is tied in directly with how the country uses its resources and energy.
“If you look at every valid piece of classic American literature and poetry and art, the unifying theme is that nature is the critical defining element of American culture,” Kennedy said before receiving a standing ovation.