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Remembering Gaylord Nelson
Remembering Gaylord Nelson
The former governor of Wisconsin, who also served in the U.S. Senate for 18 years, took on Joe McCarthy, championed civil rights, was an early and courageous opponent of the Vietnam War, an advocate of auto and tire safety, a fighter for Legal Services and for Head Start, and above all, an ardent environmentalist. He was the first Senator to propose a ban on DDT, and he helped shepherd through the landmark environmental laws of the 1970s.
Gaylord Nelson was the father of Earth Day. It was his idea. And when he left the Senate, he continued for the rest of his life to work on the issue of the environment at the Wilderness Society.
On Earth Day 2000, he wrote: “Forging and maintaining a sustainable society is The Challenge for this and all generations to come. At this point in history, no nation has managed to evolve into a sustainable society. We are all pursuing a self-destructive course of fueling our economies by drawing down our natural capital—that is to say, by degrading and depleting our resource base—and counting it on the income side of the ledger. . . . We have finally come to understand that the real wealth of a nation is its air, water, soil, forests, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats, and biodiversity. Take this resource away, and all that is left is a wasteland.”
And so, on July 13, former Wisconsin governors, and Wisconsin’s two Senators, and Senator Joe Biden, and members of the Wisconsin delegation to the House, and Wisconsin state senators and state assembly members, and justices of the Wisconsin supreme court, and other pols and friends, and more than 600 appreciative citizens filled the rotunda in Madison to pay proper respect to Gaylord Nelson.
In front of a bust of Fighting Bob La Follette and a large American flag, one speaker after another saluted him.
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