Feel safer? Then you might not want to read this book

Sunday Gazette Mail, Paul J. Nyden, Sept. 19, 2004

DURING recent months, publishers have released at least 100 books criticizing George W. Bush and his policies. Almost all focus on foreign policy, the invasion of Iraq, massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the failure to create jobs for working people.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new book is the only one fully devoted to disastrous environmental policies.

"Crimes Against Nature" is not easy to read…It's not that Kennedy does not write clearly. It's that his descriptions of the heightening threats to the earth's animals, plants and humans are so depressing and distressing.

…James Watt, Reagan's Secretary of Interior, was a hero to the political and religious right…During a Senate hearing, Watt cited what he believed to be the approaching apocalypse to justify destruction of national parks and other valuable lands. "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns," Watt testified.

Watt called environmentalists "a left-wing cult which seeks to bring down the type of government I believe in." (cut these two graphs above if need more space)

Kennedy's book documents Bush's intense campaign to repress scientific knowledge in areas such as global warming. Roger G. Kennedy, former director of the National Park Service, said: "This [Bush] administration routinely mismanages scientific information

through distortion and omission whenever scientific truth is inconvenient to its industrial allies."

…In writing about coal, Kennedy focuses on Southern West Virginia, citing articles written by Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward Jr. and quoting Judy Bonds, a Boone County-based environmental activist.

"The Bush administration and the coal industry have teamed up to wipe Appalachia off the map," Bonds told Kennedy. "This is Appalachia's last stand."