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Crimes Against Nature
by Robert F. Kennedy
(Author)
From Publishers Weekly
"Of all the debates in the scientific arena… there is none in which
the White House has cooked the books more than that of global
warming," argues Kennedy in this harsh indictment of what he sees as
the Bush administration’s assault on the environment and democracy
in general. Kennedy’s investigation focuses on the undue influence
of industry lobbyists (read Halliburton) on environmental standards
and the government’s alleged suppression of nearly a dozen
scientific reports on global warming. He maligns Bush appointees
like Interior Secretary Gale Norton ("a champion of corporate
welfare for three decades") and offers a cogent analysis of
Christine Todd Whitman’s departure from the EPA in 2002. Although
Kennedy accuses the Bush administration of using a campaign strategy
that revolves around "fear-mongering," he uses fear to drive home
his own points, noting things like the lethal mercury levels in
tuna, pork industry pollution and insufficiently guarded chemical
plants. Nevertheless, he competently ties the survival of democracy
to sound environmental policy, contending that corporate
power—particularly the power wielded by the oil, beef and lumber
industries—must never supersede democratic institutions. Kennedy’s
argument is strongest when he sticks to the facts and avoids making
the kind of angry, sweeping statements that fill the concluding
chapter ("Instead of can-do American ingenuity, this is the
administration of "can’t do." It has constructed a philosophy of
government based on self-interest run riot: It has borrowed $9
trillion from our children and looted our Treasury…"). Whether or
not one agrees with these accusations, Kennedy makes a passionate
case for more effective environmental controls and wraps it up with
a practical vision of a free-market future "in which businesses pay
all the costs of bringing their products to market," including the
costs of environmental safeguards.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier
Inc. All rights reserved.
--This
text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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