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.

thermometer
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

This year 'virtually certain' to be warmest in 125,000 years, EU scientists say

This year is "virtually certain" to be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said on Wednesday, after data showed last month was the world's hottest October in that period.
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.
Australia offers Tuvalu climate sanctuary

Anthony Albanese offers Tuvalu residents the right to resettle in Australia, as climate change 'threatens its existence'

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a new pact with the low-lying island country of Tuvalu, allowing residents facing displacement from climate change the ability to resettle in Australia. 

Sizing up Manchin’s legacy on energy, climate policy

“Whether you love him or you hate him, he has a lasting imprint and legacy," a former top Senate aide said.
republican gop elephant
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Haley, DeSantis clash over drilling at GOP debate

“He was praised by the Sierra Club," former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said, taking a swipe at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
man writing on paper
Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Biden finalizes significant overhaul in federal regulations

New rules from the Office of Management and Budget will change how the federal government weighs costs, enabling new efforts on climate change and poverty.

Three big reasons Americans haven't rapidly adopted EVs

US consumers are buying electric vehicles – just not at the pace some analysts predicted. A few core reasons keep the average consumer from moving past petrol.
From our Newsroom
environmental justice

LISTEN: Carlos Gould on wildfire smoke and our health

“Information matters a lot — trying to explain not just that there’s a problem, but how to do something about it.”

fracking PFAS

“Forever chemicals” in Pennsylvania fracking wells could impact health of surrounding communities: Report

More than 5,000 wells in the state were injected with 160 million pounds of undisclosed, “trade-secret” chemicals, which potentially include PFAS.

800,000 tons of radioactive waste from Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry has gone “missing”

800,000 tons of radioactive waste from Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry has gone “missing”

Poor recordkeeping on hazardous waste disposal points to potential for bigger problems, according to a new study.

drought climate farming

Opinion: Climate change and soil loss — the new Dust Bowl?

How we can save our soil, stabilize the climate, and prevent a new Dust Bowl.

climate change health care

Severe flooding increasingly cutting people off from health care

Many more Americans will find themselves regularly cut off from essential services, rescue workers and health care long before water actually reaches their homes, a recent study predicts.

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