Environment Loses its Staunchest Champion

[Guest guest]

Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day Founder, Dies at 89

 

Source >

http://www.wilderness.org/NewsRoom/Statement/20050703.cfm

 

" As the father of Earth Day, he is the grandfather of

all that grew out of that event. "

 

With those words and others reserved for the best and

rarest among us, President Bill Clinton awarded

Gaylord Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in

1995.

 

Gaylord Nelson, former U.S. senator and counselor to

The Wilderness Society, died early Sunday morning at

his home in Kensington, MD, just a month past his 89th

birthday.

 

The " all " that President Clinton noted enfolds an

astonishing range of environmental legislation: the

Environmental Protection Act; the Clear Air Act, the

Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act.

 

Sen. Nelson was instrumental in passage of the

Wilderness Act of 1964 and the Wild and Scenic Rivers

Act. He then worked vigorously to use these laws to

protect America's special places. Most of the

protected areas in America's Upper Midwest owe to his

advocacy. Among others, he sponsored the creation of

the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore on Lake

Superior's south shore. He was honored last year when

nearly 80 percent of the area became the Gaylord

Nelson Wilderness Area.

 

A Spark, Then a Flame

 

Sen. Nelson's most enduring gift to the American

people was the creation of an atmosphere in which such

legislation would seem so obvious and so ethical a

thing for a nation to undertake. It began with Earth

Day in 1970, an unprecedented outpouring of concern

for the quality of our environment.

 

Sen. Nelson said the public was long miles ahead of

its political leaders in discerning the steady decline

of the nation's air, land and water and hating that

decline. But that inchoate worry was only so much

tinder. It needed a spark to become a movement and

Gaylord Nelson provided it with Earth Day. His goal

was to persuade America's politicians that the public

would not only accept, but would demand, protection of

the world around us.

 

To say that he succeeded is to understate the case.

 

A Populist from His Roots

 

Gaylord Nelson was born in Clear Lake, WI, and his

first tastes of politics had the flavor of native

populism that characterized public life in the

American Midwest for decades. He was inspired by the

La Follettes.

 

After service in World War II and marriage to Carrie

Lee Dotson, Nelson was elected to the state senate,

where he served for a decade. He was then governor of

Wisconsin for two terms before his election to the

U.S. Senate, where he served for 18 years. After his

defeat in 1980, he came to The Wilderness Society,

putting in nearly a quarter century as its counselor

until his death. He chose that path despite the

opportunity to benefit financially from his years in

office as lobbyist or lawyer.

 

An Emissary for Environmental Sanity

 

Sen. Nelson was an indefatigable spokesman for the

environment, representing The Wilderness Society

across the country. He kept a travel and speaking

schedule that exhausted colleagues years younger than

he. He was much sought-after each year as Earth Day

neared and he seemed to take particular joy in

speaking on college campuses.

 

While the environmental community reveres Sen. Nelson

for his vision and leadership, his environmental

concerns seemed to flow organically from all else he

believed in. Working people, farmers, small business

owners, educators: all looked to Gaylord Nelson over

the years as a champion of their interests. He cared

about people and the things that affected their lives.

He believed that a healthy environment is among our

most fundamental rights.

 

Sen. Nelson was such a giant among conservationists

that the rest of his extraordinary record is often

overlooked. He was a leader in regulation of

pharmaceuticals, in tire safety and other consumer

matters. He was one of the first to speak out against

McCarthyism and to oppose the Vietnam War.

 

Recounting a Life

 

No person of Gaylord Nelson's towering achievements

can be thought truly self-effacing, though he tended

to be dismissive of accolades, as if he could scarcely

have behaved otherwise.

 

One story tells much of both the man and his

accomplishments. In the late 1990s, he was addressing

the annual meeting of a Minnesota environmental

organization. Its chairman introduced him with an

excruciatingly detailed account of Sen. Nelson's

environmental leadership over the years. The details

were accurate, the praise well-deserved. The

difficulty was the sheer weight of it all before an

after-dinner audience. The audience squirmed and so

did Sen. Nelson.

 

When finally he took the microphone, Sen. Nelson

smiled apologetically and thanked the chairman for the

" barely adequate introduction. "

 

Humor and Civility

 

As much as for his environmental leadership and

wisdom, we remember Sen. Nelson for his stories and

his remarkable sense of humor. Many of his anecdotes

had him as the target of the joke, and he seemed to

enjoy those most of all. He'd reject the term

" raconteur " as pretentious, but he surely was one and

in the very best sense of the word.

 

He had a fine affection for the U.S. Senate, at least

as the institution it was when he was part of it. That

was a time when civility and collegiality reigned in

the chamber. Adversaries from widely disparate points

of view pressed their positions forcefully but without

rancor. Then they socialized afterwards across party

lines as respectful friends. To hear him speak of

those years was to sense that among his great

sadnesses was the descent of that body into the

undisguised hostility that too often marks it today.

 

The Other Great Sadness

 

Though his body began to tire and fail him, his mind

never did. Just months before his death, Sen. Nelson

articulately lamented the hard right turn away from

environmental leadership in Washington. He was

outspoken in the last presidential campaign about the

Bush Administration's anti-environmental bent and

critical, too, of the failure of the Democratic

challenger to make environmental protection a pillar

of his campaign.

 

Sen. Nelson is survived by his wife, Carrie Lee; sons

Jeffrey and Gaylord Jr.; daughter Tia; and three

grandchildren. He is survived, as well, by a nation

whose natural resources are as healthy as they are in

no small measure because of the life he dedicated to

keeping them so.

 

We mourn his passing. We can offer Sen. Nelson no

greater tribute than to make Earth Day not simply an

annual event but a model for living our own lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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