Crimes Against Nature

Environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has written a well-researched expose on the environment-bashing (and also democracy-undermining) abuses occurring during the watch of the current administration. Subtitled, How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy, the book is unafraid to tell the reader just how bad the air, water and land pollution have gotten in recent years, and the consequent health hazards that have resulted. Bush’s friendly, enabling connections to big industry, notably oil, are made clear, as is their negative effect on the lives of, say, those low-income residents living near the toxic-spewing ExxonMobil refinery in Houston (“America’s smoggiest city”). “You show me a polluter and I’ll show you a subsidy,” Kennedy writes. “I’ll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and load his production costs onto the backs of the public.” Recently released paperback version contains a newly added afterward titled “How George W. Bush Won the Election.”