Robert F Kennedy, Jr at UWSP in July, 2008.

Lynda Sirianni, Wellness Practitioner from Rice Lake, WI, had the opportunity to meet, have a book signed, and chat briefly with Robert F Kennedy, Jr. while he was in Stevens Point, WI


In the keynote address of the National Wellness Conference, environmental activist and lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stressed the importance of natural resource conservation and its importance to Americans’ health.
“We’re not protecting the environment for the sake of the fishes and the birds; we’re protecting it for ourselves and our children,” he told Wellness Conference participants gathered in the Laird Room of the Dreyfus University Center on July 16, 2008.

Kennedy was invited to deliver the address at the 33rd annual conference, held on the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus, to drive home the green theme of the conference, “A Visionary Turning’ Well Earth, Well People.”

Kennedy gave a grim out-look of environmental policy under the George. W. Bush
Administration, supplementing statistics with his personal experience prosecuting polluters in Appalachia and working with the water protection groups the Hudson Riverkeepers and the Waterkeeper Alliance, which he founded.

Kennedy also paused to outline, what he said was a failure of American media to inform the public about global warming and the Bush administration’s environmental wrongs.

“Today we know more about Paris Hilton than we know about global warming,” he said. We’re the best entertained and worst informed country on the face of the Earth.”

Kennedy also touched on environmental issues facing Wisconsin, including mercury contamination of freshwater fish and air pollution emitted from coal-burning plants.

“We’re living today in a science fiction nightmare ,”he said. “Where my children, and all children of Wisconsin, and everywhere in America, can now no longer engage in the seminal, primal activity of American youth. Which is to go fishing with their father or mother at the local fishing hole and then come home and safely eat the fish, because somebody gave money to a politician.”

Early on in his speech, Kennedy emphasized that this scenario could be turned around quickly with the support of committed politicians and citizens.

“This is something we can do in a few years—not a few decades—if we had the right political leadership,” he said.

Kennedy’s appearance was sponsored in part by Security Health Plan, the Community Foundation of Portage County and WebMD.