Kerry Urges Eco-Awareness

Sen. John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, speaking at the First Parish Church on Saturday, condemned the environmental policy of the Bush administration and urged citizens to exert political pressure on their representatives.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing like defeat to concentrate the mind of a politician,” Kerry said.

Kerry and Heinz Kerry spoke at the event, organized by the Harvard Book Store, to promote their new book, “This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Enviromentalists and their Vision for the Future.”

“We have to embarrass people being dumb and greedy,” Heinz Kerry said.

Kerry said he and Heinz Kerry chose the title of their book because U.S. policy in the next 10 years will have a decisive impact on the future of the environment.

“The urgency kept coming back to us,” Kerry said. “We face a series of potential tipping points.”

During his talk, Kerry criticized the Bush administration’s proposed changes to the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, and urged a return to the environmental activism of the early 1970s.

“Under this administration we’ve gone backwards on the Clean Air Act,” Kerry said. “For the first time since the Clean Water Act, in 2003 we went backwards.”

President Bush called 2003 the “Year of Clean Water,” and he introduced new rules under which the Clean Water Act would not apply to “isolated” bodies of water. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, up to 20 percent of the nation’s wetlands could be classified as isolated, removing them from federal protection. The administration scrapped the proposals at the end of that year in the face of widespread resistance.

In 2002, President Bush announced the Clear Skies Initiative, which would allow companies to trade pollution permits. The Sierra Club has said that the plan does not adequately regulate emissions of mercury and nitrogen oxide. The bill is still in committee, though the administration has bypassed Congress by using the EPA to enact some of its provisions.

Kerry said that citizens should initiate a new wave of environmental activism.

“What’s wrong is that the power of entrenched interests has been able to sideline the power and interests of the population at large,” Kerry said. “What are we doing?”

Heinz Kerry called for a new governmental agency that would regulate cosmetics, cleaning agents, and personal care products.

“Why do people not know that our skin is our largest organ and that everything we put on it is absorbed?” Heinz Kerry asked.

Erik Procko, a fourth-year grad student in molecular and cellular biology, said he enjoyed the talk.

“I’ve heard John Kerry speak before, and he actually gave a better talk today,” Procko said. “I think his message resonated well.”

Alexander N. Harris ’08, president of the Harvard Libertarian Forum, said he disagreed with Heinz Kerry’s approach to the regulation of cosmetics.

“We should be allowed to put whatever we want on our faces,” Harris said. “You should not ban those particular products, you should restrict the amount of pollutants that can be released by that process.”

Kerry said the book was inspired by current events.

“It’s 254 pages of recycled Attorney Gonzales emails,” he quipped. “We couldn’t find the e-mails, but it is recycled.”