♪ ♪
- [Narrator] He was a small-town boy
with ideas as big as the world.
His passion for our planet
lead to a lifetime of public service,
the foundation and fabric of our nation's environmental protections,
and the largest demonstration in the history of democracy,
a demonstration for every man, woman, child
and living creature.
- It was in 1962
that Senator Gaylord Nelson approached my father about
persuading President Kennedy to make a conservation tour
of the United States to alert Americans
to the deteriorating condition of their air, and water,
and lakes, and rivers, and public lands.
It was the first such tour by any American president.
And it was the spark that finally grew into
the conflagration of Earth Day eight years later.
On Earth Day, 1970, as a result of the leadership of Senator Gaylord Nelson,
20 million Americans came out onto the street
in the largest public demonstration in United States history
to demand of our political leaders that they return
to the American people the ancient environmental rights
that had been stolen from our citizens
over the previous 80 years.
And as a result of this
extraordinary demonstration of public concern,
Republicans and Democrats got together,
and over the next ten years,
we passed 28 major environmental laws that protect our air,
our water, and our endangered species,
and wetlands, and food safety, et cetera.
- There is a great need in this country
for quality leadership.
There's a great need for quality leadership
in both our political parties.
Gaylord Nelson has this leadership.
He has the intellect. He has the integrity.
And he has the courage that this country needs.
- And He was thinking decades beyond other people.
When we talk about the great environmentalists,
Teddy Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold,
you certainly have to say that Gaylord Nelson is among
the two or three visionaries in the environment.
- [Gaylord Nelson] Anybody who just comes out and looks
would say, "My, what a marvelous, wonderful thing."
All of these things involving the status of our environment,
protecting them is a good investment from the standpoint
of the quality of living, and as an economic investment.
Forging and maintaining a sustainable society
is the critical challenge for this,
and all future generations to come.
We are not just toying with nature.
We are compromising the capacity of natural systems
to do what they need to do to preserve a livable world.
The great tragedy of the country is that we are rapidly
degrading and destroying our resources of all kinds.
We are talking about overpopulation, air pollution,
water pollution, depletion of fisheries,
and much, much more.
We are all pursuing a self-destructive course.
We can, we must, and we will forge a sustainable society.
But, it will take better leaders and better followers
than what is available, right now.
- He may walk a little slower or move a little slower
because of his advancing age,
but it has not slowed down his sense of purpose
or his commitment to the cause for which he works.
And he gets up every morning, determined to go to work
and do what he can to make a difference
to advance that cause and to speak to the issues of sustainability,
to continue his dedication to the environment.
- The founder of Earth Day, savior of the Appalachian Trail,
protector of the Apostle Islands...
- [Narrator] Bill Christofferson is the author of "The Man from Clear Lake,"
the recently published biography of Gaylord Nelson.
- Mr. Environment, Gaylord Nelson.
(applause)
- The inspiration for Earth Day,
Gaylord was on a speaking tour in California.
He had just visited the site of a terrible oil spill near Santa Barbara,
and it was reading a magazine about teach-ins that were
going on college campuses about the Vietnam War.
(explosions and gunfire)
- Colonel, at college teach-ins in the United States,
they've been debating whether the Americans should be
helping the Vietnamese at all.
What would happen...
(loud gunfire and airplanes flying overhead)
- [Nelson] Teach-ins on the campuses.
Teach-ins on the Vietnam war and I thought that's a good idea.
Why can't we have a nationwide "teach-in on the environment?"
That's where the concept of Earth Day came from.
- The first Earth Day was a very exciting time,
because many of us were concerned about the environment.
- And on our 20-minute lunch breaks, I'd sit on the back
porch and I'd see these giant pipes with this garbage
flowing out of it.
♪ ♪
♪ If you live in American city ♪
♪ You will find it very pretty ♪
♪ Just two things Of which you must beware ♪
♪ Don't drink the water And don't breathe the air ♪
♪ Pollution, pollution... ♪
- You saw the dead fish, you saw the black smoke
pouring out of smokestacks.
I had my students at Parkside, where I was teaching,
go out and collect samples of green, yellow guck
coming out of the pipes of polluting factories.
♪ They're drinking the water ♪
♪ And breathing... the air... ♪
- We needed to take our love for the environment,
our concern about conservation into the political arena
so we could get good laws passed.
And the first Earth Day was so exciting because
millions of people all across the country, high schools,
colleges, universities, stopped for one day
and we had a teach-in.
- It didn't have the name of "Earth Day" at the time.
He called it an environmental teach-in.
He said he was going to have it in the spring.
- As you know, the first Earth Day was on
April 22, 1970.
- Well, what should happen?
I announced it's going to be on April 22.
And all of a sudden, the John Birch Society
and all kinds of right-wing organizations
made an all-out assault
because this was Nelson's disguised way
of honoring Lenin's birthday. (laughter)
I didn't know that it was Lenin's birthday.
Of course, if you think about it, and you've got
a few billion people around, several people have got to be
born on every day of the year.
- And he says, you know, April 22, I guess was Lenin's.
But it was also St. Francis of Assisi,
who you could say was the first environmentalist.
He named a couple more,
Queen Isabella and his Aunt Tilly.
- These right-wing groups seriously thought that
that was a disguised method of honoring Lenin.
And I think old Vice President Agnew felt the same.
I couldn't get them to endorse an Earth Day.
Well, it was a very peaceful and dramatic demonstration
with millions and millions of people.
- This was really a kind of a day of celebration.
And it was a day of demonstrations.
It was a day of symposiums, and gatherings and events
all across the country.
And the fact that a United States Senator
would take the lead on this
and would marshal support in the universities,
the churches, the environmental groups, the farm groups,
I think undoubtedly reached people that heretofore
weren't aware of the environmental movement.
- Gaylord always says no one organized Earth Day.
How could you organize 20 million people, and all that.
But the organization,
you know, really came locally, and that was kind of the key
to this long-term success.
- Early 1970, right after winter break,
I was an undergraduate student at the University of New Mexico.
And I got a call from Washington from one of the undergraduates
who was organizing it.
And they were looking for students who had
good organizing skills to help them put together
this concept of Earth Day. I thought it was a great idea.
He said this senator from Wisconsin named Gaylord Nelson
had come up with the idea and that he wanted students to actually make it happen.
So, two weeks later, I was on a plane to Washington.
- I think that the success can really go back to
the enthusiasm, the sincerity
and the drive that Gaylord had to make it a success.
He lived it, and he worked on it.
- Well, starting the night before,
I had a schedule taking me across the United States.
- The airplanes have landed, and our first speaker is here.
So, I would like to introduce Wisconsin's Democratic Senator,
Gaylord Nelson.
(applause)
- His itinerary, he would speak at
four universities, maybe, a day.
And that went on for two or three weeks.
- I apologize for being late.
I spoke in Atlantic City this morning.
Then I had to sit in the Philadelphia airport
after leaving Atlantic City for an hour
for the air pollution to clear up so I could fly
to Boston, Massachusetts, to give a speech.
But I think you have to start out looking at the big picture.
The big picture is, that we live on a finite planet
with a limited capacity to sustain life,
with a thin envelope of air around it.
Our goal is a decent environment
in its broadest and deepest sense.
An environment without ugliness,
without discrimination, without hunger,
without poverty and without war.
- Because if we do not save the environment and save the earth,
then whatever we do in civil rights,
or in a war against poverty, will be of no meaning,
because then we will have the equality of extinction.
- The mainstream media were pretty skeptical
for the most part, whether this was a one-shot thing.
- Earth day has really taken off.
It's taken off because of the persistency of Gaylord Nelson.
♪ It appears to be ♪
♪ A long ♪
♪ Appears to be ♪
♪ A long time... ♪
- It's a great honor for me to chair Earth Day 2000.
(applause)
- I understand that Earth Day is acknowledged
in almost every country in the world.
Now, how many things can you say that about?
It's a huge achievement.
And Gaylord Nelson is the figure, political figure,
who's most responsible for the international
recognition of the environment
as one of the great modern issues.
- This is Clear Lake Wisconsin.
One of those small towns where it's so much fun
to be a boy.
A return visit by the Nelson family
is a big event for the town, as well as for the Nelsons.
Clear Lake has a lovely park, where it's fun for kids,
like Tia, to chase frogs.
- It always strikes me as ironic that the founder
of Earth Day was born in a town called Clear Lake.
- [Narrator] Clear Lake, just a small town in northern Wisconsin
surrounded by forests, lakes and farms.
Maybe the ideal environment for the young years
of the future environmentalist.
- I think that's where his love of nature started,
is in his small town.
Gaylord calls Clear Lake the "Athens of the North."
- Gaylord Nelson was someone who accomplished more than
he ever could have imagined possible when he was
growing up in this little town.
- [Narrator] Born in 1916, Gaylord Nelson
was one of four children who grew up in this house.
- From the time I was a little kid
until I went to college.
- [Narrator] His father was a country doctor,
his mother a nurse.
- The Nelsons, although they had the house full of their own kids,
it was kind of refuge for anybody who needed help.
Gaylord's father, the doctor, had countless unpaid bills.
- Money wasn't important to him; he served.
And maybe he'd take a chicken, or something, if he delivered
a baby, or something.
That was instilled in Gaylord from both his father and mother,
that wasn't the most important thing in life.
♪ ♪
Gaylord's mother was way ahead of her time.
- She was very active in community affairs of all kinds
at a time when women still didn't have the vote
and still weren't doing much politically; she was.
She was active in the Progressive Party.
- [Narrator] In the early 1900s,
Wisconsin was a stronghold of the Progressive Party,
defined largely by "Fighting Bob" La Follette,
his son, Young Bob, and other La Follettes.
- My mother was the only woman member
of the executive committee of the Progressive Party.
In the 1930s, women weren't active, as they are now.
And the La Follettes always used to correspond
or call my father.
So, I went to political meetings with my father and my mother
from the time I was in grade school.
Whenever a speaker came within driving distance,
in our Model T Ford, away we went,
40-50-60 miles, sometimes, just to hear somebody,
hear one of the La Follettes give a speech.
- This was the old elementary school.
And of course, Gaylord Nelson went to school here; we all did.
This would've been one of his classrooms.
It's now the Gaylord Nelson room, and our former Governor
and United States Senator and father of Earth Day.
And of course, naturally, Clear Lake's very proud of him.
And Gaylord, I don't think he's ever missed a year
that he hasn't been back in Clear Lake for a week or so
in the summertime.
- Great. - [Audience} Thank you.
- I think it's really neat that you come back and see us.
- Every year. - It's cool that he founded
Earth Day, and stuff like that, and he's from our town.
- Hi. - [All] Hi.
- You better play the trumpet for me.
I used to play it in this band.
- [Teacher] Several years ago. - Half a century.
(all laugh)
(band plays)
- I think it's very important for Gaylord to return here,
as he does every year.
I think he's still a small-town boy.
(general conversations in café)
- Gary.
- He lives up in Clarence Sandburg's home.
- How are you?
- His father was a doctor.
He came out and delivered me first
and came home and delivered Gaylord.
- We were in the same class since grade school.
- Your dad delivered me and after he give the price to my dad,
he later told my dad, he said, "Nah, you don't owe me nothing."
(Nelson chuckles) It was hard times then.
- [Narrator] Growing up in Clear Lake may have been ideal,
but Gaylord Nelson's ambitions would take him far beyond
the rural Northwoods of Wisconsin.
- When I was in grade school and high school,
I dreamed of being a governor or a U.S. Senator, just dreamed about it.
- He became a confidant of important politicians and presidents.
He traveled the world. He made thousands of speeches.
He got legislation passed.
He mobilized millions of people on Earth Day.
He did all of these things, but it never really changed
who he was or what he was all about.
He was always kind of this small-town boy from Clear Lake
off on an adventure with kind of this
"gee-whiz" attitude about him.
(Big Band music)
- [Narrator] His adventure took him through college in California,
law school in Madison, Wisconsin,
and the U.S. Army in World War II.
Lieutenant Nelson was assigned to lead a company
of black soldiers in the still-segregated army.
He would later push for legislation to integrate
the Wisconsin National Guard.
After serving three years stateside, his company was sent
to the Pacific Theater just before the atomic bombs
and Japan's surrender.
- Of course, probably the most important event of the army
was that I met my wife, Carrie Lee.
She'd just gotten out of nursing school and went into the Army.
And then, I shipped off to Okinawa.
And she ultimately landed on Okinawa also,
where we met again, for the second time.
And then, we got married in the year 1947.
- There's a really nifty quote of hers in Tom Brokaw's book,
from "The Greatest Generation,"
and he opens each chapter with a quote.
I think it's interesting that Brokaw chose to use
a quote from my mother, not my not my father.
He recognized what an important, though not always visible role,
my mother played in making it possible for my father
to be as successful as he was.
- [Narrator] After the war, Nelson practiced law
in Madison, Wisconsin, then entered state politics
as a Democrat and served 10 years in the Wisconsin Senate.
- Senator Nelson, is it possible to sum up your charges
against the present state administration?
- In two words: Dry rot. Only in...
- [Narrator] In 1958, he followed his childhood dream and ran for governor.
It was an uphill campaign against two solid decades
of Republican administrations.
- Good evening. Well, the battle is over.
The signs are being put away for another day.
Wisconsin has a new Democratic governor.
You were actually, you might say, surprised that you won?
- Yes, I was. I thought there was only
about one chance in four that I could win.
And I never expected to win by this margin, by any means.
(band plays "On, Wisconsin!")
- [Judge] I will faithfully and impartially discharge
the duties of the Office of Governor to the best
of your ability so help you God? - I do.
- Congratulations, sir. - Thank you. (applause)
- Well, he first of all, modernized state government
and created the greatest outdoor resources protection act
in the history of the state.
- Well, Wisconsin has a very long tradition of concern
about our environment and conservation ethics.
Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and of course, Gaylord Nelson.
- His landmark legislation was the Outdoor Recreation Act Program,
which set aside money from a one-cent cigarette tax
in order to purchase key park land and wetlands areas,
a million acres all over the state.
It was the single biggest environmental action ever taken
by anybody in the United States.
- He proposed this, and took it around the state
and held meetings and public hearings
and explained the program.
And there really was kind of something for everybody,
which made it more difficult for legislators to oppose it.
But the original concept was Gaylord's.
It was one of the things that, at the time,
Wisconsin was kind of setting a standard
for the country on how to do that.
It became a model for other states who did similar things
across the U.S.
- So, he was able to deal with the practical politics
of what it took to put it in place.
But it was his vision that put in place a program
that has lasted for decades,
continues to this day to be at the very center
of what we do in environmental protection in Wisconsin.
- It's what really made him the conservation governor.
It kind of stamped him with that issue permanently in people's minds.
- [Narrator] Governor Nelson's bipartisan skills
fostered political harmony that might seem impossible today.
But there was one issue that bred deep division.
- I will never forget his courage
in dealing with somebody like Joe McCarthy.
When Gaylord was governor, his secretary Ester Kaplan
circulated a petition calling for the abolition
of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
They were ruining peoples' lives by smearing them,
claiming they were communist and anti-American.
And then, the Republican Assistant Floor Leader
demanded that he fire Ester.
So, Gaylord called a press conference.
He said, you know, Ester Kaplan was absolutely out of line
in circulating this petition.
The least she could've done is bring it to me,
so I would've had the privilege of being the first signature
on the petition.
And then I would've told her, "Go get it!"
Gaylord took on issues like that.
- [Narrator] Like Gaylord Nelson, his close friend,
Martin Hanson, is a conservationist
and environmental activist.
Hanson observes and records the natural world close-up
at his home in the forests of northern Wisconsin.
The two have been allies for nearly half a century,
working to preserve the region's wildlife
and natural resources.
- I first heard him as governor,
and he spoke of all the values
that he got living in a small town.
He feels that he had a wonderful youth,
woods, lakes.
Gaylord has an understanding of the whole system.
And there are resources that are finite,
and we need to conserve.
(cranes calling)
- [Narrator] Nelson served two terms as Governor of Wisconsin,
then aimed for his other childhood dream,
the U.S. Senate.
Like his hero, "Fighting Bob" La Follette,
the whistle stop was part of the campaign.
- I'd like to say that I've always believed
that a man's personal commitment is to excellence
and is to victory.
Gaylord Nelson has this leadership.
And I would support him whether he be
a Republican or a Democrat.
- One of his elections, the bumper stickers said,
"Nelson Naturally."
And there's not too many politicians
for which that would make sense.
- [Narrator] In 1963,
with John F. Kennedy in the White House,
Gaylord Nelson took his conservation message
to Washington and onto the national stage.
- [Nelson] In our fresh, clean waters,
children and families find wholesome recreation.
Yet, we are destroying them at an incredible rate.
These scenes were taken this summer on Lake Superior.
They show industrial waste pouring
into what was crystal clear water.
- When he went to the Senate,
he immediately began to think about,
what can we do to get this to the public's attention.
- Up here in this beautiful part of Lake Superior,
in Wisconsin, are the Apostle Islands.
This magnificent recreation area must be preserved.
- His first idea was that he would get President Kennedy
to talk about the issue,
to make a national tour about the environment.
He did convince the President to make the trip.
- I persuaded him that when he landed in Duluth
that we should take some Army helicopters
and fly over the Apostle Islands.
- On that tour, Gaylord had me as a tour director.
And the tour took only 45 minutes to an hour
before we looked at the Islands
and came over the sand beaches and cliffs.
There is no group of islands or archipelago like it.
And the better sailing areas of all the Great Lakes.
I mentioned that, I got the big Kennedy smile.
- Now, you tell that to a Kennedy,
and John F. Kennedy, President Kennedy, started looking.
And because of that,
we have one of the few national lakeshores in America
is in the Apostle Islands; it's because of Gaylord Nelson.
- Anyone who flies over those islands as we just did
must realize how significant this occasion is.
And what we are doing here, which is concentrating
the attention of the people of the country
on this great natural resource, must be duplicated
in every state of the union.
- Senator Gaylord Nelson introduced the Apostle Islands
National Lakeshore bill and passed it through
the United States Senate.
- [Nelson] But it still took until 1972, nine years,
to get that bill through both houses and signed.
- Eventually, his position has prevailed.
And it's because he's been willing to stick with it and persevere.
- He came along at a very, very
important time in American history
when a lot of very important events were occurring.
- Well, Gaylord was one of the first people to
speak out publicly about the Vietnam War.
- He felt that, as Eisenhower did, that
we shouldn't be engaged in a ground war in Southeast Asia.
- Of course, there are those who would like to have
an all-out war, and bomb all of North Vietnam
and bomb China.
And then, you could sit there for years and years,
and when you left. the insurgency would start again.
(loud bomb blasts)
- I am not going to emphasize any policies
that I think promise either a quick victory
or a quick withdrawal.
♪ ♪
- Fifty thousand lives
and $150 billion later,
if only we had listened to Gaylord Nelson then.
(applause)
- [Narrator] Whether because of his anti-war position
or other issues, the Nixon administration
identified Senator Nelson as one of its enemies.
In June of 1973, the secret list hit the press.
- I was kind of proud that Wisconsin
was the only state in the union that had both senators,
Proxmire and I were on the enemies list.
- But he was remarkable for being a strong advocate,
without ever personalizing it.
He knew that in the Senate and in public life, you fight battles.
You have to come back another day.
You have to sometimes work with people who were
on the other side before to promote the programs
and the values that you care about.
- [Narrator] Nelson used that ability to capitalize
on the success of Earth Day.
He went on to help pass more environmental legislation
in the decade that followed
than in the history of the country,
a period now referred to as the "Environmental Decade."
- And in a very short period of time,
almost unbelievably quickly, the U.S. Congress passed
the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act,
the Endangered Species Act, the Environmental Protection Act,
and a whole series of legislation in the middle '70s,
which basically gave us the framework to begin
to make serious progress at protecting our environment.
And we now do have cleaner water; we have cleaner air.
- Most of that legislation, you'll notice,
was done on a bipartisan basis.
There were Republican and Democratic sponsors
to almost every one of those pieces of important
environmental legislation that passed during that era.
- I think it has had a significant impact.
It I think, as Senator Nelson explains in his
most recent book, "Beyond Earth Day,"
at least brought us to a politics
or a paradigm of crisis or urgency.
That there was an urgent reason to be aware
of what was happening to our environment,
whether through rivers being on fire in the '60s and '70s,
water that was no longer drinkable,
air that was not breathable.
That was very important.
- [Narrator] Nelson and the political leaders
have warned that today however, those laws and the environmental
progress that followed are being undermined.
- We have, at the moment, the most anti-environmental
Congress in my lifetime.
Senator Nelson is appalled.
When I talked to him, he just can't believe
that the great laws that he worked so hard for,
Clean Air, Clean Water, Endangered Species,
are now being weakened or threatened.
They may be reversed, so we face a very important time,
probably as important as the late '60s.
And we need some inspirational leadership.
We don't have it; we don't have leadership in the White House.
We don't have much leadership in the U.S. Congress.
- The environmental community needs to reassert itself.
And, we're going to weaken ourselves from within,
if we don't have the kind of strong environmental protection
policy that has been a hallmark of our country
ever since Gaylord Nelson.
- So, I pretty much covered Gaylord for 18 years,
the 18 years he was in the Senate.
His office was right along there.
- [Narrator] After his Senate career ended in 1981,
Nelson didn't retreat.
He didn't cloak himself in the belief that Earth Day
and the awareness it brought closed the gap
on the very serious environmental problems
facing the planet today.
Nelson continued to advocate for the environment,
joining the Wilderness Society as its counsel,
and making countless appearances across the country,
warning that the battle for protecting the country's
natural resources is far from over.
- Most people, at some point in their career retire.
They have fought the good fight.
It's time to take their golden years and take it easy.
However, when you have someone like Gaylord Nelson,
that's simply not the case.
- When he finished being a United States Senator,
he could have gone out and made millions of dollars
as a lobbyist; he could have done anything.
And instead, he goes to work for the Wilderness Society
and continues to fight the good fight for the environment.
- Full-time, worked seven or eight hours a day,
traveled around the country for two decades
after his retirement from the Senate.
I think that's absolutely unprecedented.
- I think it's the most eloquent indication
of what sort of a man he is.
- He was probably 86 or 87,
when he finally slowed down after an operation,
that he finally cut it back a little bit.
- I can't sustain my voice very long,
so as Henry VIII said to Ann Bolin,
"I won't keep you long."
(all laugh)
- And when you ask him why he keeps doing it, he says,
"Well, there's still things to do, things that aren't done."
- [Narrator] Nelson's efforts have earned him
a number of honors, such as the Ansel Ansel Adams
Conservation Award, the United Nations
Only One World Award, and the nation's highest civilian award,
the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- There are not many United States Senators
who have ever gotten the Medal of Freedom.
♪ ♪
- [Narrator] Nelson continues to take on some
of the most challenging, controversial issues
and to confront them head on.
- Overpopulation.
We're consuming the resource base of the world
and over-pressuring the environment everywhere.
So, sustainability is the challenge
for the human species.
- From the very beginning, Gaylord Nelson realized
that the environmental problems were caused by several factors
coming together: population, more and more people.
And the population's almost doubled in the world
since the first Earth Day.
The U.S. population is growing very rapidly.
We're the fastest-growing developed country in the world,
going up at three million or more a year.
So, Gaylord Nelson understood that.
And he always talked about it.
- We'll join China and India
as the billion people club.
Everything will double.
What will be left of scenic beauty,
open spaces that we cherish?
- The population issue brings all the hot button things up.
You've got birth control, and you've got sex education,
and immigration, all these issues
that politicians are afraid to talk about.
- [Nelson] Immigration is the big net gain
that we're involved in.
- His idea that restricting immigration is a key
to doing something about the population issue,
and how many people can this country really support,
is something that a lot of people
have a hard time understanding or dealing with it.
And he's resolute about it.
- [Nelson] Crowding, overpopulation,
takes away all kinds of rights.
The right to freedom from noise
and freedom of elbow room.
- Certainly at his age, it would be easy
to rest his laurels
and not make any great waves
or not strike out in any new directions.
But this population question
is an example of his willingness
to take criticism and to talk about things
he really believes in, even when they may not be popular.
It's not a new position for him.
- [Narrator] Intertwined with the issue
of human population growth is the loss of biological
diversity on the planet.
From the smallest, unknown life forms
to some of the most common and recognizable,
scientists agree the planet is now experiencing
the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth.
The difference now, scientists tell us, is that
the current mass extinction is caused by humanity's
sheer numbers and the changes it's wrought to the Earth's
lands, waters, air, indeed, its very climate.
- All of the countries in the world
are consuming capital,
and counting it on the profit side
of the ledger.
What's our capital?
Air, water,
soil, forests,
rivers, lakes, oceans,
wildlife habitat,
biodiversity.
That's the wealth of the country.
- [Narrator] Nelson makes it clear, however, that preserving
life on Earth, in all its forms, is essential not only
to maintaining the living system upon which all life depends,
but to the nation's other sacred trust: the economy.
- Where do the jobs come from?
The jobs come from the resource base that you have.
If you destroy the resource base,
that destroys the jobs.
The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment,
not the other way around.
If you showed everybody the implications
of population growth in terms of biodiversity,
a livable place,
if they all understood that
then you can ask the question,
what do you want to do about it?
- They know that whatever they do to the environment,
it affects the environment.
So, if they throw plastics down,
that it can harm our birds.
It can harm the fish, you know,
by polluting our waters and our air.
So, they're more appreciative
and they can also teach somebody else
not to do that as well.
- The environment is their house.
That's where they live.
You want it to be a junkyard
or do you want to preserve
the beauty and the diversity of the wildlife?
- [Narrator] Nelson also has great concern
about global warming, considering it one of the most
challenging issues with which the planet wrestles today.
- There is no question that we've seen a global warming
of the surface temperature over the last hundred years.
One of the questions is,
how much is it caused by human effects?
(loud rumbling)
- Global warming is caused by burning coal and oil,
primarily in our cars, as well as old, dirty
coal fired power plants.
The hotter it gets, the more extreme our weather will be.
Heat waves, wildfires and increased storms.
- [Narrator] Nina Leopold Bradley,
daughter of naturalist Aldo Leopold,
and her brother, Carl, have been tracking global warming
by watching the seasonal comings and goings
of plants and wildlife at the old Leopold shack
in central Wisconsin.
Aldo Leopold recorded his research
in widely circulated essays,
such as the "Land Ethic,"
published 1949, in "A Sand County Almanac."
- Aldo Leopold, I met once.
If you have the "Sand County Almanac,"
he would spend days on a sentence,
just one sentence or one paragraph.
- Dad wrote:
"Keeping records enhances the pleasure of the search
and the chance of finding order and meaning in these events."
- [Narrator] Through their work today, the next generation
of Leopolds is taking up where their father left off,
creating a detailed local climate record
that now spans more than 60 years.
- We now keep track of about 320 events:
the arrival of birds,
the first blooming of plants, and so forth.
A third of the items
are coming two to three weeks
earlier then when dad was here
in the '30s and '40s.
The sandhill cranes, in general,
are coming a week to ten days
earlier then when my father was here.
When we grew up as children,
we always went ice skating on Thanksgiving Day.
Today, there was not even a crust of ice
on our local ponds.
It has changed migration patterns.
It has changed behavior patterns.
It has changed flowering of plants.
- [Narrator] For more than 35 years now, Gaylord Nelson
has advocated lessening our dependence on fossil fuels,
such as oil and coal,
and investing in renewable energy sources,
such as wind and solar power.
- [Nelson] How long can the United States and the world
continue to consume the world's resources,
the non-renewable resources,
the minerals, the oils,
at the current accelerating pace
before we exhaust the world supply?
- If we understand the science of it, perhaps then we can
do something to change the way we are treating the earth.
We know the science.
We just need now to inform the public
so we can change our behavior patterns.
- [Nelson] Aldo Leopold once wrote, "The first rule
"of intelligent tinkering is to save all of the pieces.
"Our tinkering hasn't been very intelligent,
"and we aren't saving the pieces."
You can't do anything until the public is convinced
that it needs to be done.
So, I propose that the president
will give an annual message
on sustainability every year
after the State of the Union Address.
- [Narrator] Nelson also called for ongoing
Congressional hearings at which leading scientists
would testify about some of the planet's increasingly
complex environmental problems.
But Nelson knew there would be no quick fixes.
His long-term goal: cultivating an environmental ethic
among the next generation.
It is the only way, Nelson asserted,
the United States can become a sustainable society,
one that lives within its means without exhausting the resources
that will be needed by future generations
to maintain an acceptable standard of living.
- We need to raise a generation--
and it's coming--
that is guided by an environmental ethic.
- And we have to start early.
Children have to understand why environmental ethic is important.
Why is it that we should care about the land?
Why should we care about our environment?
Why should we care about lakes and rivers?
Why should we keep the air clean?
Because, they're all inter-related.
- If we intrude here,
what will the consequence be?
Mud Lake came right up to this yard.
And they drained it.
And it was an environmental disaster.
♪ ♪
You're learning a lot from the prairie?
- [Children] Yes!
- We took wildlife inventory.
And that's when we asked different classes
to come out on the prairie and write down everything
that they saw, they heard and smelled.
- [Nelson] All kids love wild creatures.
And we should be giving them something
that they have an interest in...
(all laugh)
- Well, what we have found is that if you do a study,
there's research out there on people who make
environmentally sound decisions.
Those people have had consistent contact
with a piece of land throughout their life
and they've had a mentor of some sort, either a neighbor
or a parent, or a teacher, who has demonstrated
respectful behavior toward the environment.
And that leads to strong environmental decision making.
- [Narrator] The Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee
is a neighborhood environmental education center
located in Wisconsin's most densely populated community.
The Center works closely with area schools
to integrate nature into the students' curriculum
and is fast becoming a national model.
- You guys all recognize these boots, right? - Yes.
- Many of them live really close to the river,
so it's part of their community, so they can make a really nice
direct connection to the river.
And it's a way for them to get to know the environment
right in their own backyard.
- Three, four...
- I'm going to pour this in. - A salmon jumped up by me.
- And I think that the more experience we give children
that live in the inner city, the more eager they are
going to want to learn about their environment
and the things around them.
- This one's a clam. This is a crawfish.
- Yeah, we got it. We got it!
- This is really fun, because it's hands on.
They get to get in the water.
They're studying and we're connecting it to their curriculum at the schools,
but they actually get to do the real-life hands-on learning
out in the environment.
- Anything that we take out of the river, we put it back.
Anything.
♪ ♪
- The living skills that you can gain in relationships are very important.
- [Narrator] Teaching young people about the environmental,
health and economic benefits of locally grown, organic food
is a goal of Growing Power,
a non-profit Milwaukee group
that supports community-grown food.
- It's really a natural thing
for young people to touch the soil, for all of us.
We're all connected to the soil, to Mother Earth.
So, I've had kids that have come in here that are just wired.
And once they touch the soil, something just happens to them.
It's very therapeutic, especially for young people
that live in the central city where there's concrete.
When they come here, and they see soil
and they see plants growing, that's a start.
- To educate you as consumers, as to what you are eating,
so you eat organically, to eat foods with lower pesticides.
- It's important to create these new growing systems.
To have a sustainable food system,
you must have food that is grown inside cities
and outside of cities.
You can't just have food that is grown outside of cities
because we're losing farmland faster than we're losing
land inside cities.
Without healthy, safe, sustainable food
I don't see how we can improve our communities.
Understand that this is farming.
- [Nelson] Young people, all people, have to be
exposed to the concept of sustainability.
(applause)
♪ ♪
We have the greatest most glorious park system
of any country in the world.
There's something to be said
for the opportunity and the freedom
to find a place that's quiet and remote.
Unless the public sees places like this
they don't know they exist.
And they don't know that they are threatened.
Understanding the importance
of natural areas is vital
to preserving our future.
- Stockton has, some people say, the highest density
of black bears anywhere in the world.
This is former Governor Gaylord Nelson.
- Hello. Nice to meet you.
- And I brought 27 of my students here.
- How do you like the islands?
- Oh, they're beautiful.
- He was the person who advocated that we should
create this place as a national park.
And then later, he became a U.S. Senator
and he made it happen.
So, you're looking at the father
of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.
We're all indebted to him for all of his hard work
over many years to help create this place.
- Thank you. - Yes.
- I didn't create it.
Somebody up there. - Well, that's true.
- Are you cooking out here? What are you cooking?
- Peanut butter and jelly.
(all laugh)
- [Narrator] As a fitting tribute to the man
who fought so long to preserve the Apostle Islands
as a National Lakeshore, nearly all of the islands' land area
is now officially designated and protected by Congress
as the "Gaylord A. Nelson Wilderness."
- [Nelson] When the National Parks were created,
they were to be managed
to preserve the natural beauty,
the wildlife,
and pass them on to the next generation unimpaired.
- And if you read the Wilderness Act,
"without the imprint of man...
"for the use of enjoyment of the American people."
It's a real quandary there.
How do you manage for both of those things?
And trying to protect some very wild places,
some places that really meet that intent
of the Wilderness Act.
Wonderful opportunities for solitude.
- It provides an experience for people
that they can't get anywhere else.
♪ ♪
It's put aside because every place else
is being changed by humans.
And we're trying hard not to change those areas
so that we can have those experiences that are disappearing.
- This area was designated
as the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in 1972.
We really worked hard, especially to try to retain
that real pristine character when you get off trail.
This view tells part of the story.
People come here, they stop, and they look at those mountains
and they say, "I want to go in there."
And I don't blame them, because I do too.
- ...the Appalachian Trail.
And then it was broadened to create
the whole national trail system.
- [Narrator] Park Manager Pam Underhill believes
that if Nelson hadn't sponsored the National Trails System Act
in the U.S. Senate, national scenic trails,
such as the Appalachian Trail, wouldn't have been saved.
- So, I know it's going to something our kids
and our grandkids, and our great grandkids,
are going to be so grateful for, in the years to come.
But one of the issues, I think we've come to realize, the issue is overuse.
The issue is too many people trying to enjoy
a resource like the Appalachian Trail.
And what that does to the opportunities for solitude
and the kind of experience the Appalachian Trail offers.
For my part, I think that there are going to be fewer
and fewer places for the low-end recreation user,
the person who just wants to walk.
- I started in Georgia.
And right now, I'm about 977 miles along the trail.
So, it's a little shy of halfway.
I like the aspect of being able to hike
and not see other people.
Unfortunately, or, fortunately, I don't know,
there's been a lot of people on the trail, more than I would have expected.
But, it certainly is nice
to get away from the sound of the highway.
- Particularly in the eastern United States,
there are going to be fewer and fewer opportunities
for a remote outdoor recreation experience.
So, we are forever in your debt. (laughs)
- Gaylord Nelson came along
at the right time and the right place.
He has left a legacy
that he rest of us will be talking about
environmental issues for a very, very long time.
(Native American drumming and singing)
- Well, we gather here today to honor a gentleman
who had the foresight, I guess, way back in the '60s
to start saving the water,
the Namekagon River and natural places we have.
- I came up here as a Boy Scout
and camped on this river.
- I've grown up here and I was 15 years old
when Gaylord Nelson got into the Namekagon River.
- Right now, they're threatening to cross it with a power line
from up in Canada down through Wisconsin.
- I will have to be 200 years old
before they put that line across the river.
(crowd cheers)
- He gave us all an opportunity to come into the woods
where we can think about how much we love this land.
So, I want us to remember that, and I want us to thank this man
for preserving that for us.
He gave us the tools to fight the good fight.
- And we invite everybody to always come here
to these special and sacred places,
and to remember Gaylord, remember the Earth,
remember that warrior within themselves.
- Thank you! (cheers and applause)
- I'm reminded of a wonderful line
from Melville's "Moby Dick."
"How long will it take
"to get to the end of the road to nowhere?"
Melville eloquently described
this phenomenon that's going on
all over the country
by raising the question
whether Leviathan, the whale,
"Can long endure so wide a chase.
"Whether he must at last
"be exterminated from the waters.
"And the last whale, like the last man,
"smoke his last pipe,
"and then himself evaporate...
"into a final puff."
♪ ♪