"We're not protecting the environment for the fish and the birds, but for our own sake," Kennedy said. "Nature is the infrastructure for our communities. If we want to create communities for our children, as the communities our parents gave us, we have to protect our nature's infrastructure."
The lecture, "Our Environmental Destiny," dealt primarily with Kennedy's work with the new Obama administration and the actions being taken to protect national environment. Kennedy has been working on the national energy policy and national environment policy for the past six months.
According to Kennedy, these plans include an understanding by the government and companies of the relationship between economic success and protecting the environment.
"Good environment policy is 100 percent of the time is identical to good economic policy," Kennedy said. "We want to measure economy on how it produces jobs and dignity of jobs and produces values of our communities now and in the future."
Kennedy discussed the overwhelming role of subsidies in the destruction of the environment, concentrating primarily on coal, carbon and nuclear industries.
"We give half a trillion dollars a year to nuclear industry in subsidies," Kennedy said. "The direct subsidies for the disposal of their waste. We learn in kindergarten, if you make a mess, you have to clean up after yourself. The nuclear industry has shifted those costs to us. If you had to internalize those costs, there is no way you can be successful in marketplace."
Kennedy also discussed the money spent on other market subsidies, including $1.3 trillion in subsidies to the oil industry.
Kennedy said he believes a firm commitment to free market capitalism could help battle this cost, as well as environmental destruction.
"I believe the free market is the best thing that can happen to the environment," Kennedy said. "In a true free market, it promotes efficiencies, and pollution is waste. Free market would encourage us to value our natural resources. You can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich. Polluters lower quality of life for everyone around them while ruining their own quality of life."
Kennedy proposed using the market to deal with economic and environmental issues.
"We need a national marketplace for energy," Kennedy said. "It's so restricted and so over-regulated. The rules are extraordinarily perverse. The market is not a god to be worshipped. It's a tool, not a god. Like a hammer, you use it, not worship it. The market has to be governed by rules that are consistent with our interests and the interests of the world."
To do so, Kennedy advised the American population to use this free marketplace model.
"We need market that turns every American into energy entrepreneur and every home into a power plant," Kennedy said. "We could have free energy forever. Once we build that infrastructure its free forever."
David Prytherch, associate professor of geology and Miami University sustainability coordinator, said these initiatives are good options.
"Mr. Kennedy's talks pointed out how many opportunists there are and it is time to explore those opportunities," Prytherch said.
Kennedy spoke about how a national concentration on helping the environment and working for other forms of energy could aid the economy in ways unprecedented since the Industrial Revolution. Calling on examples of other nations, Kennedy demonstrated positive role models.
"Every nation that has de-carbonized its society has experienced instant prosperity and wealth," Kennedy said. "Iceland de-carbonized and went from poorest nation in Europe to fourth richest country by GPD in the world."
Kennedy, nephew to President John F. Kennedy, is the author of 2004's Crimes Against Nature and serves on various environmentalist groups, including serving as senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and as chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper.
The event was part of the 2009-10 Miami University Lecture Series and was open to the public.
