Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Born on January 17, 1954, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an American radio activist, political activist, and practicing attorney specializing in Environmental law. He is the nephew of the former president, John F. Kennedy and son of the former United States Senator, Robert Francis Kennedy. Robert Jr. currently co-hosts a successful radio talk show, "Ring of Fire" and is an activist in many fields. Robert grew up as a troubled child after seeing both his uncle and his father assassinated in a four year period. After being expelled from school at fifteen, Robert rebounded and up graduating from Harvard in 1976 and Masters of Laws degree from Pace University.

Specializing in environmental law, Kennedy used his expertise to work for his causes. He founded the Waterkeeper Alliance, which connect and supports local waterkeeper groups. With his efforts, there are now 191 water keeper programs worldwide operating under his organization. Kennedy has served as a Clinical Professor of Environmental Law at Pace University and currently serves as the senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who work to expand environmental laws and restrict land use. In 1998, Kennedy created a bottled water company whose profits go to the Waterkeeper Alliance. Named "Tears of the Clouds," the company is based in the Adirondack Mountains. Kennedy has recently in the past decade been arrested multiple times for supporting differing environmental causes and concerns including the "Keystone Pipeline." In 2005, Kennedy angered many more people including environmentalists when he said, "As an environmentalist, I support winder power, including winder power on the high seas....but I do believe that some places places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development." He used examples like "Yosemite National Park." Despite his controversial actions and statements, Kennedy was named to "Time.com" as one of their "Heroes for the Planet" for helping "Riverkeeper" to restore the Hudson River.

Capitalism vs Marxism

As stated in Dressner's text, sustainability can be defined as the "non-depletion of capital." Many people who are for Marxism or through more commonly used terms such as socialism would argue that socialism's main roots come from the inability for capitalism to solve humanity's problems. Many people who think this way feel there are certain limits to the natural environment, and if we are not careful, they will be reached sooner rather than later. In the introduction of Dressner's text, it is stated that "resources have to be shared so that there is enough for everybody, both now and in the future." It then goes on to state that sustainability in this way has a lot in common with socialism. While there are many pros to maintaining resources and making sure there is enough for everyone, the are many cons to the idea also. There are higher costs associated with socialism and a bigger government influence on the people of the nation. Also, there is less room for growth with socialism with more controlled factors.

On the other hand stands capitalism. With capitalism you gain all of the perks socialism does not have with sustainability, while gaining all of its flaws also. You receive less government regulations and more room for growth, development and the eventually growth of capital. With capitalism though, there are not as many consequences of taking actions. As stated in Dressner, "a society that does not take into account the repercussions of its transformation of nature can hardly be said to dominate nature at all. While both capitalism and socialism have there pros and cons, I think what keeps society keep evolving are both working together. Because of these differing ideas, both keep the nation maturing in terms of sustainability, while bringing new and innovative ideas in other fields of thought.

Trash in Greece

Greece

This past summer I went on a "Mercer on Mission" to Greece. It was one of the most enthralling and eye-opening experiences of my life, while also being able to see all of the beautiful sights that Greece has to offer. In Greece, a group of fourteen of us including two professors worked with the local "Romani"(gypsy) population in Examilia, a small town close to Corinth. Here, we worked to help establish a school for the Romani children to help them realize there are more opportunities than the life of crime that many of their population resort to. While I could talk forever about my experiences with the Romani or the sites and culture I saw of Greece, one environmental issue that I saw throughout Examilia and actually all of Greece is their trash problem. Many of the towns of Greece do not have proper sewage systems...meaning no flushing of toilet paper. Whenever we would travel to places to visit, we'd almost always pass a huge, landfill-like mound of garbage along the way that mine as well had been a giant dead skunk the way it smelled. After doing some simple searches on the internet, I found out that trash in Greece is becoming a major environmental concern and one I am very interested to learn about.

Here's a link to an article about the issue: http://world.time.com/2013/05/28/greeces-garbage-crisis-a-stinky-metaphor-for-a-country-in-the-dumps/

A picture of Examilia: