“That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.” ~ Gaylord Nelson, founding father of Earth Day.

It took the steely determination and unflagging perseverance of one individual to arouse and unite the passions of nearly 20 million Americans that culminated into the creation of Earth Day. More importantly, it finally put the need to urgently harness and limit environmental decadence, before things reached irreversible extents, on the map of the nation’s political agendum. Let us see exactly how Gaylord Nelson, then Senator of Wisconsin, managed to rip off the blindfolds of politicians, forcing them to see how the earth was needed immediate help to recuperate after being made subject to industrial rape everyday. Read the Earth Day history to know how it all began.

History of Earth Day

Dubbed ‘the Conservation Governor’ for introducing major environment-friendly movements in the state of Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson did his own bit to save mother nature. Nagged continuously by the alarming thought that “that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country”, Nelson went about initiating and sanctioning major waterbody cleaning campaigns, natural resource conservation projects and even created green jobs, within his peripheries. But once he ascended to the chair of a US Senator in the year 1962, he tried to open up the eyes of the government policy makers and lay bare the unimaginable abysmal depths of degeneration that the earth had reached. Back then, no industrial proprietor could be sued of taken to court for spewing all its industrial wastes into waterbodies or breathing out venomous fume freely into the atmosphere. Simply put, there weren’t any Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act that could limit anybody’s drive to guiltlessly damage the earth. In 1962, Nelson communicated his fears to Attorney General Robert Kennedy and urged him to convince the then President of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy to take up this issue of environmental conservation during the President’s 11-state conservation tour that was scheduled to take place in 1963 over a period of 5 days. J.F. Kennedy approved of the idea and did his best to campaign for the cause but unfortunately, it was a failure.

Nelson however, refused to give up. He clawed his way through with the cause, trying to spread awareness in his small ways. He gave speeches to people from all strata of society. He traveled to almost 25 different states all over the country, demonstrating devastating future outcomes such as water and air pollution and smog. He especially tried to draw the attraction of the masses who belonged to the grassroot level for he knew it was with them that the ultimate strength lay and it was only a power outcry from them that could coerce the politicians sit up in their cushy chair. Read the rest of this entry »