Our Environmental Destiny

In his beautifully written speech, “Our Environmental Destiny,” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. discusses the important role that our natural surroundings play in our work, our health, and our identity as people. Using examples gathered from relevant art, history, litigation, and literature, he reminds us that we have a responsibility to protect and preserve the environment for future generations.

Excerpt from Mr. Kennedy's Speech

"What we are fighting for is not just the fishes and the birds. We protect nature not for nature's sake but for our own sake because it's the infrastructure of our communities, and if we want to meet the obligations of our civilization and our culture which are to create communities for our children that provide them with the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment as the communities that our parents gave us, we've got to start by protecting that infrastructure; the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the landscapes that enrich us. We're not protecting nature for nature's sake. We're protecting it because it enriches us, yes, it enriches our economy and we ignore that at our peril. But it is also enriching us aesthetically, recreationally, culturally, historically and spiritually. Human beings have other appetites besides money. And if we don't feed them, we're not going to grow up…we're not going to become the kind of beings that our creator intended us to become."