Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at my school this morning, at an environmental conference. Had to post a stock photo because I don’t yet have a camera…

I ate breakfast with him before his speech, basically a preview of the kinds of things he was gonna say, then live-blogged the speech itself on twitter.com/greenletters. The transcript of the liveblog is below for your consumption. I left out the analysis. If I end up doing that for a class, I’ll listen to a recording of the speech. (I’ll let you see that, too, if I do it.)

Gonna try to liveblog Bobby Kennedy Jr.’s speech at GreenTown Chicago. That is, until my laptop battery runs out.

RFK Jr.: Protect the commonwealth, the shared properties like air & water. The private sector takes them over when they pollute them.

RFK Jr.: “Environmental impact is defecit spending. it’s a way of loading costs onto our children’s future.”

RFK Jr.: Conversely, environmentally friendly stuff is not throwing money away, it’s an investment. It’s money in the bank.

#greentown RFK Jr.: We are borrowing a billion dollars a day from nations that largely don’t share our values…

#greentown RFK Jr.: …to buy a billion dollars of oil a day from nations that largely don’t share our values.

#greentown RFK Jr: Coal isn’t the cheapest source of energy: The U.S. subsidizes the industry $1 tril. annually; that’s not accounted for.

#greentown RFK Jr.: The reason we can’t have high speed rail in this country is because the coal gondolas have warped all the rail tracks.

#greentown RFK Jr.: “Whenever you see the destruction of the environment, you always see the subversion of democracy.” (“corruption.”)

#greentown RFK Jr.: As Sweden, Iceland and Brazil decarbonize, they give us evidence of the economic successes that can be had doing it.

#greentown RFK Jr.: There’s enough wind in Montana and S.D. to supply all the U.S.’ energy, even if every American owned an electric car.

#greentown RFK Jr.: We can do long-haul transmission of electricity. We need to do it. The problem? Stupid, “irrational” rules.

#greentown RFK Jr.: A CEO must choose between his loyalty to shareholders and his loyalty to humanity. That’s an unfair decision. Change it.

#greentown RFK Jr: Price of bits and bytes has dropped to about 0. That’s what’s gonna happen to electrons as soon as we build a nat’l grid.

#greentown RFK Jr: How do you pay back $1.4 tril? In 2 years, by saving the $700 billion a year we’re sending to places like Saudi Arabia.

#greentown RFK Jr: Solar-thermal: Roughly $3 billion a gigawatt, same as a coal plant. But free energy for the life of the plant.

#greentown RFK Jr’s green venture capital firm: we’re gonna take trillions away from carbon-energy in 10 yrs. “Destroy” em at their own game

#greentown RFK Jr.: We’re funding both sides of the war against terror… How to stop? Stop buying gas from the guys who drop bombs on us.

#greentown RFK Jr.: “Polluters make themselves rich by making everyone else poor. … You show me a polluter, i’ll show you a subsidy.”