“Good environmental policy is identical with good economic policy, if we measure the economy by how many dignified jobs it produces in the long run and how well it preserves the fabric of community,” the candidate said at a campaign event to mark Earth Day.

“What the big polluters want us to do is treat the planet like a going-out-of-business sale, to convert natural capital into cash as fast as we can,” said Kennedy Jr., who has made environmental advocacy the centerpiece of his campaign.

“After a few years of pollution-based prosperity, we create the illusion of a wealthy economy, but our children will pay for it with depleted aquifers, poor health, chronic disease and bad food,” he said, “with escalating cleanup costs.”

The campaign event, which also featured vice presidential nominee Nicole Shanahan and environmental leaders, was designed to solidify the campaign’s appeal to the segment of the electorate most alarmed about the climate crisis, especially younger voters.

Kennedy Jr. did not address his controversial anti-vaccine views but said that “we should not look for health only at the point of a needle.”

His vision, should he reach the White House, is to ensure that environmental resources remain in the public domain and are not subject to monopolization by private corporations.

“I spent 40 years fighting this argument that somehow investing in our environment diminishes the wealth of the nation,” said the candidate, who noted that he grew up in Washington — the son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy — but shunned the life of a lobbyist or fundraiser.

“I wanted to work on the water, in the woods, with people who spend their lives working in nature,” he said, adding that it was his engagement with fishermen that taught him the most important lessons he learned as an environmentalist. “Fishermen saw pollution as theft,” he said.

Kennedy Jr. argued for an integrated approach that would connect the dots between the food system, health care and democracy. “Nature enriches humanity, not just economically but in health, in well-being, in culture, in history.”

One of the campaign’s themes is to reconnect with nature and move away from what they call carbon fundamentalism, in which the focus of environmental action is on reducing emissions.

“There’s this idea that the only problem is carbon emissions. The problem is much bigger than that, it’s a problem of how we interact with the world as a whole,” Kennedy Jr. said.

“The first question we have to ask is how do we look at the whole system and understand how these things are related,” including issues like the rise of chronic diseases and the depletion of topsoil.

Nicole Shanahan said society is at a fork in the road and must choose between an “augmented,” over-engineered future or one that is “aligned and in partnership with nature.”

Campaign adviser Charles Eisenstein said the discussion “is a sign of a shift” in the political discourse, as Kennedy Jr. positions himself as an alternative to the two front-runners, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

“We are not separate from nature. What we do to it, we do to ourselves,” he said. “The pollution we put into the world will eventually pollute our own bodies.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has already qualified for the ballot in Michigan and Utah and has submitted enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in New Hampshire, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho, Nebraska and Iowa.

The candidate is polling at about 10 percent nationally, and is seen as a potential spoiler for both Biden and Trump — appealing to progressives who prioritize the climate crisis as well as to vaccine-hesitant conservatives.

Read Also: British parliament approves deportation of migrants to Rwanda (Portuguese version)