Free Republic

REASON * May 2000 Earth Day, Then and Now The planet's future has never looked better. Here's why. By Ronald Bailey Thirty Years ago, 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Fifth Avenue in New York City was closed to automobiles as 100,000 people joined in concerts, lectures, and street theater. More than 2,000 colleges and universities across America paused their anti-war protests to rally instead against pollution and population growth. Even Congress recessed, acknowledging that the environment was now on a political par with motherhood. Since that first Earth Day, the celebrations...

How the First Earth Day Came About By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and...

"I don't think most people understand where we're headed." - Gaylord Nelson in 1994, on the perils of overpopulation That he was a man of exceptional wisdom and courage seems beyond dispute. But while dozens of pundits and politicians paid tribute to Gaylord Nelson following his death on July 3 at age 89 and lauded him for his sterling environmental record, most made passing or no reference to the issue to which the father of Earth Day devoted the last decade of his life: overpopulation. It is, Nelson had maintained, not only a critical issue for the future of mankind,...

MILWAUKEE -- Gaylord Nelson, a former governor and U.S. senator from Wisconsin and the founder of Earth Day, died Sunday morning. He was 89. Nelson died at his home in Kensington, Md., of cardiovascular failure. Family spokesman and Nelson's biographer Bill Christofferson said Nelson died peacefully with his wife beside him. Twenty-five years after the first Earth Day, April 22 is still a day on which many people plant trees, clean up trash and lobby for a clean environment. Nelson was a conservationist years before it became fashionable. He was recognized as one of the world's foremost environmental leaders. Then-President...

MILWAUKEE - Gaylord Nelson, the former governor and U.S. senator from Wisconsin who founded Earth Day and helped spawn the modern environmental movement, died Sunday. He was 89. Nelson died of cardiovascular failure at his home in Kensington, Md., a Washington suburb, said Bill Christofferson, Nelson's biographer and a family spokesman. "He died peacefully. His wife was with him," Christofferson said. Thirty-five years after the first Earth Day, April 22 is still a day on which many people plant trees, clean up trash and lobby for a clean environment. A conservationist years before it became fashionable, Nelson was recognized as...