Robert F. Kennedy Jr. environmental advocate

Peter Dykstra: WTF RFK Jr.?

An environmental leader’s bizarre journey from hero to pariah

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was 14 when his father was murdered during the 1968 Presidential campaign. As a child of America’s most storied political dynasty of the 20th Century, he could not have avoided a high-profile life even if he wanted to.


RFK Jr. became a superstar environmental lawyer, first for New York City, then for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). He investigated and litigated cases for the Hudson Riverkeeper, helping to bring the local group to worldwide renown. Municipal landfills, industrial waste sites, and corporate giants like Exxon and General Electric soon found it much harder to pollute unchallenged. News organizations discovered a next-generation Kennedy.

Riverkeeper

In 1997, I produced a documentary on Bobby and The Riverkeeper, John Cronin, for Japan’s TV Asahi.

I spent a day with RFK Jr as he took water samples from an outfall that emptied into a drinking water reservoir in the New York suburbs. I was impressed by how he simultaneously kept his focus on the sample jars that carried the day’s mission, and the long, daunting tasks that awaited the environmental movement.

RFK Jr.'s divergent path

Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Daniel Schwen, via Wikimedia Commons

Around the year 2005, RFK Jr began to make two significant breaks with much of the mainstream environmental movement.

An ambitious proposal for a windfarm along Cape Cod’s South Shore divided some locals. Blue-collar fishermen joined some well-heeled sailors in opposing Cape Wind. They found an enthusiastic funder in Bill Koch, estranged brother of Charles and David Koch; and a dynamic mouthpiece in Bobby Kennedy.

RFK Jr said he was sticking up for the fishermen. Green colleagues, feeling betrayed, saw a cynical effort to preserve the view from the Kennedy family compound. After more than 16 tortuous back-and-forth years, Cape Wind’s backers threw in the towel.

Also in 2005, Bobby Kennedy lent his name to a cause whose roots in science denial would end up costing tens of thousands of lives. Concern over a potential link between vaccines and autism went viral (sorry) despite a thorough discrediting within the larger science community. RFK Jr’s more mainstream links began to vanish. By 2017, his name disappeared from the mastheads of NRDC, the Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance groups, the Pace University Environmental Law Clinic, and more.

Anti-vaxxer

His other legal work continued, including winning a whopping nine-figure judgement against Monsanto and its glyphosate herbicide in 2018.

These days, RFK Jr. is Counsel at Morgan & Morgan, which bills itself as the largest personal injury law firm in the U.S.

But last weekend, Bobby Kennedy took another big step into the rabbit hole: In describing how COVID vaccine advocates have conquered the world, he played the Hitler card:

RFK Jr. told an anti-vaxx rally at the Washington Monument that Anne Frank, the noted Holocaust victim, had it better than today’s employees facing a vaccine mandate.

'Reprehensible and insensitive'

RFK drew predictably strong criticism. His tweet also drew one of the harshest slap-downs in the brief-but-colorful history of Twitter: Kennedy’s wife, the actress Cheryl Hines, came after him like nobody’s business.

Hines ripped her hubby’s “reprehensible” remarks, for which he apologized.

Progress, with baggage

(Major irony alert: Hines’s best-known TV role is that of Larry David’s wife in the angst-ridden hit comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm.)

And whatever baggage is attached to his anti-science quackery and bizarre Hitler-baiting, the world is now home to hundreds of River-, Bay-, Lake Keepers and more, thanks to RFK Jr and his colleagues.

So – Larry David joke scouts take note—we may just have to take our medicine on the curious case of Bobby Kennedy, Jr.

Peter Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist and can be reached at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.

His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate, or publisher Environmental Health Sciences.

Banner photo credit of RFK Jr. courtesy Presse Online, via Pixabay.

Biden administration bans oil and gas drilling around Chaco Canyon

The Interior Department will withdraw public lands around Chaco Canyon from new oil and gas leasing for 20 years.
Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.
climate protest sign
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

‘Climate negotiations are inherently abusive’: campaigner Brianna Craft on the struggle smaller countries face

In her memoir, the Cop delegate draws parallels with her violent childhood home and the imbalance of power in global summits.

Brazilian Amazon at risk of being taken over by mafia, ex-police chief warns

Alexandre Saraiva gives alert on organised crime in region ahead of anniversary of killings of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira.

transmission lines sunrise
Photo by Marcus on Unsplash

FERC aims to fix the grid's renewable energy backlog. Can it?

Developers and climate advocates say a proposal from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may not spur enough change.
West Virginia governor's coal empire sued by the federal government
Photo by Taton Moïse on Unsplash

West Virginia governor's coal empire sued by the federal government

The lawsuit, filed by the Justice Department, seeks millions in unpaid environmental fines as Gov. Jim Justice begins his campaign for the U.S. Senate.
guam
Photo by Lucie Rangel on Unsplash

Guam's water, power outage still remains after Typhoon Mawar

About half of the island remains without water, and about 65% is without power. It may be weeks until the utilities are fully restored, local authorities said.
phoenix from top of hill
Photo by Walter Martin on Unsplash

Arizona limits construction around Phoenix as its water supply dwindles

In what could be a glimpse of the future as climate change batters the West, officials ruled there’s not enough groundwater for projects already approved.
From our Newsroom
Supreme Court wetlands

Opinion: Supreme Court undoing 50 years’ worth of environmental progress

The Supreme Court has taken a brazen anti-regulatory turn. It’s our planet and health that will suffer.

healthcare sustainability

Reimagining healthcare to reduce pollution, tackle climate change and center justice

“We need to understand who is harmed by an economy that’s based on fossil fuels and toxic chemicals.”

plastic pollution

Recycling plastics “extremely problematic” due to toxic chemical additives: Report

Negotiations are underway for a global plastics treaty and parties differ on the role of recycling.

UN plastics treaty

Opinion: UN plastics treaty should prioritize health and climate change

Delegates should push for a treaty that takes a full-lifecycle approach to plastic pollution.

halliburton fracking

How the “Halliburton Loophole” lets fracking companies pollute water with no oversight

Fracking companies used 282 million pounds of hazardous chemicals that should have been regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act from 2014 to 2021.

President Joe Biden climate change

Op-ed: Biden’s Arctic drilling go-ahead illustrates the limits of democratic problem solving

President Biden continues to deploy conventional tactics against the highly unconventional threat of climate change.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.