Good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy.

That was among the comments environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made yesterday at the Blue Planet Summit, which gathered about 80 local and national energy experts, business leaders, government officials and others to discuss clean energy initiatives.

The three-day conference, planned by Honolulu-based nonprofit Blue Planet Foundation, kicked off yesterday at the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa. The summit, which is closed to the public, aims to foster clean energy initiatives in Hawai'i and around the world.

Good environmental policy is sound economic policy "if we want to measure our economy — and this is how we ought to be measuring it — based upon how it produces jobs and the dignity of jobs over the generations ... and how it preserves the value of the assets of our community," said Kennedy, chief counsel for the environmental organization Hudson Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance.

"If, on the other hand, we want to do what they've been urging us to do on Capitol Hill, which is to treat the planet as if it were a business in liquidation, convert our natural resources to cash as quickly as possible, have a few years of pollution-based prosperity, we can generate an instantaneous cash flow and the illusion of a prosperous economy, but our children are going to pay for our joy ride.

"Environmental injury is deficit spending. It's a way of loading the cost of our generation's prosperity on the backs of our children."

Kennedy said he has had to constantly confront the argument that an investment in the environment is a diminishment of the nation's wealth.

"It doesn't diminish our wealth," he said. "It is an investment in infrastructure, the same as investing in telecommunications and road construction. It's an investment we have to make if we're going to ensure the economic vitality of our generation and the next generation.

"If we want to meet our obligation as a generation, as a nation, as a civilization, which is to create communities for our children that provide them with the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment and prosperity and good health as the communities that our parents gave us, we've got to start protecting our environmental infrastructure."

He said countries — such as Iceland — that "decarbonized" their economy have seen their economies flourish.

Kennedy said the United States needs to "rejigger" the economy and the rules of the marketplace to level the playing field for renewable-energy enterprises. Government regulations favor the "worst operators in the system," that could not survive in a true free market, which punishes inefficiency and rewards efficiency, he said.

"You show me a polluter, I'll show you a subsidy," he said.

"The most important thing you can do is get involved in the political process and get rid of all these ... politicians who are just indentured servants to the oil companies ... ."

Kennedy also criticized the media, saying they are "not informing the American people about issues of public import."

"Today, Americans are the best entertained and the least informed people on the face of the earth," he said.

Other scheduled speakers at the summit include Denis Hayes, Bullitt Foundation CEO and national coordinator of the first Earth Day; former CIA Director R. James Woolsey; and Stanford University professor and Nobel laureate on climate change Stephen Schneider.