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Former U.S. Senator ******* Nelson Dies


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Jul 3, 8:31 AM (ET)

By RYAN NAKASHIMA

MILWAUKEE (AP) - ******* Nelson, a former governor and U.S. senator from
Wisconsin and the founder of Earth Day, died Sunday. He was 89. Nelson died
at his home in Kensington, Md., of cardiovascular failure, said Bill
Christofferson, Nelson's biographer and a family spokesman.

"He died peacefully. His wife was with him," Christofferson said.

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.

A conservationist years before it became fashionable, Nelson was recognized
as one of the world's foremost environmental leaders. Then-President Clinton
presented Nelson with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 for his
environmental efforts.


"As the father of Earth Day, he is the grandfather of all that grew out of
that event: the Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean
Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act," read the proclamation from Clinton.

Nelson entered public life in 1948 as a Wisconsin state senator from Dane
County, a position he held for 10 years. In 1958, Nelson became only the
second Democrat during the 20th century to be elected governor of Wisconsin.

While in office, Nelson used a penny-a-pack tax on cigarettes to pay for the
Outdoor Recreation Acquisition Program in 1961. The program allowed the
state to buy hundreds of thousands of acres of Wisconsin park land, wetlands
and other open space.

After two two-year terms, Nelson was elected in 1962 to the U.S. Senate,
unseating 78-year-old incumbent Republican Alexander Wiley.

In his three terms, he championed conservation policies, including
legislation to preserve the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail and create a
national hiking system.

Nelson's most recognized effort, however, was Earth Day, which he started as
an environmental demonstration based on the anti-war teach-ins of the
Vietnam War.

"It suddenly occurred to me, why not have a nationwide teach-in on the
environment," Nelson said. He announced his idea at a speech in Seattle in
September 1969, and it "took off like gangbusters."

The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, attracted an estimated 20 million
people. Tens of thousands of people filled New York's Fifth Avenue, Congress
adjourned so members could speak across the nation, and at least 2,000
colleges marked the occasion.

Nelson once said Earth Day worked because "it organized itself. The idea was
out there and everybody grabbed it. I wanted a demonstration by so many
people that politicians would say, 'Holy cow, people care about this.'
That's just what Earth Day did."

In 1972, Sen. George McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee, sought
out Nelson as a potential running-mate. Nelson said no.

"Behind his humor and behind the sort of rough-cut, down-to-earth manner,
there was always a person of sober conviction," McGovern said later.

Nelson continued to represent Wisconsin in the Senate until he was narrowly
defeated in 1980 by Robert W. Kasten Jr., one of a raft of Republicans swept
into office with Ronald Reagan.

Staying active in the Wilderness Society, Nelson more and more focused his
attention on the world's quickly multiplying population. When he was born in
1916, the world's population was about 1.8 billion - which grew to nearly 6
billion in 1999.

"At the present, all nations in the world, without exception, are pursuing a
self-destructive course of fueling their economies by consuming their
capital ... by degrading and depleting their resources," he said in a June
1999 address to the Wisconsin Legislature.

"The wealth of the nation is air, water, soil, forest, scenic beauty,
wildlife habitat - take that away and all that's left is a wasteland," he
said.

Nelson grew up in the northern Wisconsin town of Clear Lake and later said
he learned to love the outdoors "by osmosis" and learned frugality from his
father, a country doctor who conserved paper by writing his patient profiles
on the back of drug advertisements.

Nelson earned his bachelor's degree from San Jose State College in
California and received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin in
1942.

Nelson served in the U.S. Army during World War II before returning to
Madison to set up his law practice.