Friday at the Outdoor Retailer convention, a different kind of extreme activity had the coffee-clutching gearheads out in droves: politics.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a river-pollution watchdog and the most environmentally active member of the Kennedy clan, and Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters, made early morning addresses to rooms overflowing with convention-goers. Not surprisingly, both tailored their talks to the presidential and congressional races.
"This is a watershed election," Callahan said. "On Nov. 3, I'm either going to dance out of bed or I might not get out of bed at all."
While the League of Conservation Voters is officially nonpartisan and considered by many to be the strongest political voice of the environmental movement, Callahan left little doubt which presidential candidate is the choice of her organization's members.
On the League's "National Environmental Scorecard," used to rate congressional voting records on environmental issues important to the organization, Democratic Sen. John Kerry has a 96 percent lifetime voting record, Callahan said. On the other hand, on the "Presidential Report Card" the League uses to grade presidential administrations' environmental records, the current Republican administration of George W. Bush is the first to garner an "F" in the 34-year history of the group.
Finding a way to stop what Callahan called the "negative trajectory" of America's environment needs to be priority No. 1 for politically inclined environmentalists, she said, and the League of Conservation Voters is working to activate the estimated 11.5 million people who are members of environmental organizations into a force as potent on the political scene as the 13 million-member AFL-CIO.
At a breakfast meeting, Kennedy spoke passionately about the spiritual benefits of preserving the environment. "The central epiphany in every religious tradition occurs in the wilderness." he said. "God talks to us through many vectors . . . but nowhere with the clarity, force, detail, texture and joy as through nature."
Epiphanies aside, in modern-day America, the best argument in favor of the environment is its economic benefit, Kennedy said, telling assembled manufacturers and retailers that their most powerful lobbying tool is the ability to paint environmental issues in economic terms.
"It's so important for environmental policies to have endorsement from the business community," said Kennedy, who began his activism by prosecuting polluters on behalf of small-time commercial fishermen.
Kennedy told The Salt Lake Tribune in an interview that the environment is not, or at least shouldn't be, a divisive topic. "The worst thing that could happen to the environment is for it to become a partisan issue," he said, noting that he supported the candidacy of his cousin Maria Shriver's husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the California governor's race and that polls show both Republican and Democratic voters favor clean air and water regulations.
President Bush, he said, is different. "We've never had a president like this, whose agenda is to eviscerate 30 years of environmental law," he said. "People are angry, of every political ilk, when they learn what's happening in the White House."
