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."

Date:   7/5/2005 9:48:09 PM ( 19 y ago)

"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."

--The Wilderness Society
http://www.wilderness.org

"All About Earth Day"  http://earthday.wilderness.org/history/


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May we all be such lovers and healers of the Earth!

Love,
Liora Leah

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