RFK Jr.'s plot to destroy the planet

Environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently paid a visit to Washington and sang its praises, but I'm not sure why he'd be welcome these days.

RFK Jr. said:

"I have been here for recreational purposes on many occasions, all over Washington state. In fact, I started coming here when I was a little boy," said Kennedy, 54. He's now the chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper, a New York-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Hudson River and its tributaries.

"I love this part of the country. I will take almost any invitation to come out here or excuse to come out here. ... I wish I could live out here."

He might want to live here, but he'd be likely unwelcome in Seattle, anyway, because greenie RFK Jr. is a member of "Big Water." That's right. In 1998, he co-founded a bottled water company that sells fresh water in evil plastic bottles with the cockeyed idea that he might be doing something good for people and the environment. The company donates 100 percent of its profits to the environment.

But in Seattle, where Mayor Greg Nickels has banned the substance from City Hall, railed against bottled water's carbon footprint, and has led the fight to ban bottled water in city offices all across America, they're trying to stamp out Big Water and entrepreneurs like Kennedy.

RFK Jr. has built an environmental crusade around saving the Hudson River. And his bottled water company, Keeper Springs, helps promote the Waterkeeper Alliance, which is devoted to protecting America's waterways. There are few more eloquent speakers about eco-responsibility and stewardship than environmentalist and outdoorsman Kennedy, who grew up at the knees of such famous Northwest wilderness mentors as mountaineer Jim Whittaker and U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

But bottled water purveyors are the new pariahs. Along with shoppers who use plastic grocery bags and folks who make smores on the beach at Alki. If Robert Kennedy Jr. is going to move here, he's going to have to get with Nanny Nickels' program.

At the very least, he is going to have to explain why he hates the earth.

• Knute Berger is Mossback, Crosscut's chief Northwest native. He also writes the monthly Gray Matters column for Seattle magazine and is a weekly Friday guest on Weekday on KUOW-FM (94.9). You can e-mail him at mossback@crosscut.com.