R.F.K. Jr.’s Environmental Colleagues Urge Him to Drop Presidential Bid - Separately, a dozen other national environmental organizations have issued an open letter calling Mr. Kennedy “ a “dangerous conspiracy theorist and a science denier” who promotes “toxic beliefs” on vaccines and on climate change.
nytimes.com/2024/04/19/cli…
nytimes.com/2024/04/19/cli…
“The Bobby I knew is gone,” said Dan Reicher, a senior energy researcher at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for Environment.
Gina McCarthy was the administrator of EPA under President Barack Obama: “If folks remember him as an environmentalist, he is no more,” she said about Mr. Kennedy. “He’s against science, he’s against vaccines, he talks jibber jabber on climate. I don’t know what he stands for.”
Mr. Kennedy’s views on climate change are unconventional. He agrees with the overwhelming scientific opinion that carbon dioxide and methane, two greenhouse gases, are heating the planet, and that the evidence is visible. “All of my senses are telling me that the warming is occurring,” he said in a video he posted to X in July.
But in the same video, he also said that a “war on carbon” was not the answer and that “this crisis is being used as a pretext for clamping down totalitarian controls.” He said that the actors behind the clampdown were “the intelligence agencies, the World Economic Forum, the billionaire club at Davos,” and that their goal was to make the rich more wealthy. But moments later, he said that free markets would solve the climate crisis.
Mr. Kennedy said he opposed federal subsidies for carbon capture and storage, a technology to capture greenhouse gas emissions from power plants or industrial processes before they reach the atmosphere, where they drive global warming. Mr. Kennedy called it a “useless and huge boondoggle to the industry” and criticized Mr. Biden for agreeing to include those subsidies in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the president’s landmark climate law.
But in the same video, he also said that a “war on carbon” was not the answer and that “this crisis is being used as a pretext for clamping down totalitarian controls.” He said that the actors behind the clampdown were “the intelligence agencies, the World Economic Forum, the billionaire club at Davos,” and that their goal was to make the rich more wealthy. But moments later, he said that free markets would solve the climate crisis.
Mr. Kennedy said he opposed federal subsidies for carbon capture and storage, a technology to capture greenhouse gas emissions from power plants or industrial processes before they reach the atmosphere, where they drive global warming. Mr. Kennedy called it a “useless and huge boondoggle to the industry” and criticized Mr. Biden for agreeing to include those subsidies in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the president’s landmark climate law.
On Thursday he said eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels and tougher enforcement of existing laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act would be sufficient to fight climate change.
John Hamilton Adams, who co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council and hired Mr. Kennedy in the 1980s, said in a statement: ”I mentored Bobby as a young environmentalist. I do not recognize the person he has become. His actions are a betrayal to our environment.”
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