Transcript of a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., upon receipt of the William O. Douglas award from the Sierra Club. Lots of excellent stuff in there, from how President George W. Bush is single-handedly ruining planet Earth, to the strip mines of West Virginia and how they are actually bad for the area.

Coming from West Virginia, we hear commercials on TV and radio all the time from the likes of Massey Coal (umm, sorry, Massey “Energy”) on how good the coal mines are to our state. We even see state celebrities like former WVU football coach Don Nehlen telling us how he’s a “friend of coal,” and how the coal industry has sustained our state since time out of mind. I used to play around and in a strip mine up on my Grandparent’s farm, and, while the sulphur pools and shale mountains were very cool to an 8 year old, even at that age I couldn’t help but wonder what permanent damage was being done to the farmland.

Kennedy’s speech is long, but there are several places there where you’ll be moved, particularly if you have some twinge of an environmentalist in you. Worth it, definitely. I don’t normally take these links and promote them to the front of my blog, but this is worth it.