Image Via Flicker User mrkumm

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has never been one to rest on the laurels of the past successes of his distinguished family. He has become one of the world’s preeminent environmental crusaders, starting with the United States. While he has something valuable to say on everything from the current Bush administration (in his book, Crimes Against Nature), to his patron saint (St. Francis of Assisi, on whom he has written a children’s book), it is on the issue of water where he has perhaps delivered his most profound impact. He is the chief prosecuting attorney for an organization called Riverkeeper, and the president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, which has led to the reation of well over 100 Waterkeeper organizations around the world. Kennedy’s leadership in Riverkeeper’s attempt to return the fouled Hudson River to its original state led Time magazine to single him out as one of their “Heroes for the Planet.”

JG:
If you were President for the next 100 days, with full cooperation from Congress and the Senate, what would be your top three priorities?

RK:
I would tax carbon production and other bad behaviour because I believe strongly in free market capitalism and, right now, we are taxing productivity instead. We’re taxing innovation and we’re taxing good things. We want to reward the good and punish the bad. Our tax system should be doing that first of all.

I would put an immediate stop to mountain-top mining.

I would declare an Apollo-style project to free us of our dependence on fossil fuel, which would mobilize the American public and our technologic, scientific and military resources toward that end.

JG:
What is the role of government in creating a sustainable society and a sustainable economy?