Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day Founder, Dies at 89

"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.