Gaylord Nelson: Taking a Stand for the Environment By Robert Memmel Junior division Extended Research Paper Word count: 1,618 1
Gaylord Nelson took a stand against harmful modern chemicals such as Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane ( DDT) and by doing that saved the Bald Eagles from extinction. He also made Earth Day a reality on April 22, 1970 so people could help him clean the Earth. He was able to accomplish this huge success by making speeches and becoming senator to make a better appearance for himself to make people more likely to switch onto his side. Some people were furious and unwilling to listen to Nelson because of Earth Day but he found ways to get them on his side. This paved a path for Nelson to create Earth Day and made it a day to remember by inspiring 20 million people to rally and spend time doing recreational activities. Soon after most the world joined in helping the Earth. Gaylord Nelson grew up looking at the beauty of the environment around him and admiring it. Long after that he got his law degree at the University of Wisconsin. After fighting in World War II he came back to Madison and helped the Democratic Party. While doing that he started fighting for the environment and soon was elected to the U.S. Senate. While in the 1 Senate he spoke out strongly about the environment and what little care Americans gave it. As stated in Introduction: the Earth Day story and Gaylord Nelson, he started going to oil spill sites and gathering information about them to prove that most people around the world were doing a bad job at keeping the environment healthy. DDT was the biggest thing that Gaylord Nelson wanted to help get rid of at the time. DDT is a pesticide that was made by scientists to kill mosquitoes. It was used in World War II to protect the troops from mosquitoes that carried malaria. After World War II it was heavily used in cities and, while it protected children from mosquitoes that carried illnesses, it severally damaged the environment. People did not know that DDT was hurting the environment, they just knew that it was a way to kill mosquitoes and that was enough for them. Through the 1950s DDT was used heavily on a lot of things but it was used mostly on the air around towns and 2017. 1 "Meet Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day." Nelsonearthday.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2
cities. In fact, special DDT trucks were manufactured to spray DDT everywhere so that mosquitoes weren t seen. Before the ban on DDT, kids played a game where they chased down the DDT truck. The problem was that while they were having fun chasing the truck they were placing themselves in danger of getting cancer by inhaling DDT. One of the worst things that DDT did was destroy the Bald Eagle s chances of being in the entire United States.. The bald eagles themselves were not eating, or inhaling DDT, but they were eating fish, and the fish were swimming in DDT infested water. DDT found it s way into the water because of the DDT trucks spraying DDT during the time of day or night when it was raining or it would drive by streams or lakes putting the dangerous chemical in the water way. the the DDT would find it s way into the main water, infecting fish making them hazardous to get eaten by anything. The DDT itself did not kill the bald eagles, but when they laid their eggs the shells broke because they were thin making them frail and crack easily before the hatchling was fully developed, killing them. Effectively putting Bald Eagles on the endangered list. It was so 2 bad that the population didn t begin rising until now. In the 1950s scientists started to test DDT on fish and other wildlife and found that it had bad effects on them. DDT use was a huge issue for scientists and they were trying to think of ways to stop it. When Gaylord Nelson was young and was just out of law school he saw the devastation of DDT by listening to scientists thoughts about it as truck loads of it poured onto Maple Bluff, Wisconsin. After he was elected into the senate he vowed from then on to fight to protect the environment. The only problem was that very few people actually wanted to help him, so when he proposed a bill to ban DDT nobody, not one person was with him and the bill 3 was defeated almost instantly. After a full seven years of trial and error he still wasn t able to sway the U.S. Senate to ban DDT. In 1965 scientists found Gaylord Nelson and he proposed for another ban on DDT with the help of scientists. In 1970 it was accepted by Wisconsin and 2 Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife. "Bald Eagle Fact Sheet." Official Web Page of the U S Fish and Wildlife Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2017. 3 "Modest Beginnings: Nelson's Idea on a Plane." Nelsonearthday.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2017. 3
became the first official state to have banned DDT. Just two years later, DDT was banned in the entire United States. While scouting in a plane for environmental issues, Gaylord Nelson stumbled upon one of the worst oil spills he had ever seen, the gigantic oil spill in Santa Barbara. While in the plane Senator Nelson read an article about teach-ins held on college campuses and said, "If we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force the issue onto the national political agenda" as stated in the Introduction: the Earth Day story and Gaylord Nelson. He started working on an idea of a national holiday, Earth Day by making speeches and notes on it, until he finally proposed it to the public and he got them to start thinking about it and wanting to make the earth cleaner and healthier for animals and humans. As more people thought about it, Nelson s mailbox filled up faster than he could empty it. Soon he became incapable of handling all the people s questions, so he constructed an independent organization, Environmental Teach-In, Inc., to stop the overflow of mail. Some Americans were skeptical about Earth Day and whether or not it would be all talk or real. Although this skepticism wasn t enough to ruin the Earth Day spirit it started spreading. Documents from Nelson caused irritation in anti-war protesters because Nelson s Earth Day and activities to stop pollution were taking up all the media, putting the anti-war protesters fight to stop the Vietnam War in the shadow of of Earth Day. A group of Americans started to object to Nelson, stating that environmentalists were not thinking deeply enough and that they only scratching the surface of the problem of pollution. According to Representative Paul McCloskey, the Democrats would not stop interrupting him and Nelson like fascist pigs. Secretive socialists that weren t happy with Nelson, like a Milwaukee corporation president, refused to donate to the cause of Earth Day because of the thought of certain extreme activists, interested in the destruction and retaking over of the business community. Conservatives spoke out against environmentalists because of their goal of increasing the 4
public s spending for the environment. In the end, even with all the hate people were putting on him it didn t stop Nelson from his main goal of getting Earth Day as a national holiday. In September 1969 he went to the national office and insisted that, "This is the time," Nelson said, "for old-fashion political action." He said to not make a uniform national protest and leave it to the grassroots. After that Nelson and the Teach-In office worked almost all day supporting what they could with the organizers, and endorsed a multitude of grassroots actions. They started to excite and push people of all ages to start finding environmental problems in their neighborhood and make their own solutions. Gaylord Nelson s choice to leave Earth Day up to the people proved to be brilliant. His office estimated that 20 million Americans were ready to participate in Earth Day. On April 22, 1970, 20 million people started Earth Day. It was truly extraordinary how many people joined in helping with Earth Day. Nelson and the Washington D.C. coordinating office and Environmental Teach-in Inc. could have never produced such a massive result in a measly seven months if they did not have the grassroots participation. After that, Gaylord Nelson was humble about his help with Earth Day and extremely proud and grateful of the nation s response. Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time not the resources to organize the 20 million demonstrators who participated from thousands of schools and local communities. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself." 4 After the huge success of the first Earth Day many more followed. One special one in the 1990s changed who participated in Earth Day when a bunch of environmentalist leaders organised a global Earth Day with Gaylord Nelson's partner Denis Hayes. This time the 20 million people from the first one were accompanied by 180 million more from 141 countries, and every single one started to work help clean up the environment. 5 This act raised the environmental issues all the way to world level. The 1990 Earth Day gave a massive boost to 4 "Introduction: The Earth Day Story and Gaylord Nelson." Nelsonearthday.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2017. 5 "The History of Earth Day." Earth Day Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2017. 5
recycling acts around the world. It also gave Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom which was the highest honor give to people in the U.S.. Gaylord Nelson took a stand and played an enormous role in environmental care, protection, and stewardship. He did this by opening American eyes and made them look at the worsening environment. Even when he was backed into a corner he held strong and never gave up. Finally, he rallied the country, banned DDT, and founded a day where people across the world take time to think about the environment and their impact on it. Bibliography ""The Wrong Kind of Pollution": Critical Responses to Earth Day." Nelsonearthday.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. This source is a website, it was useful to me when I heard there was an argument against Nelson and writing that argument. "Introduction: The Earth Day Story and Gaylord Nelson." Nelsonearthday.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. This source is a website, it was useful to me when I first started researching my topic and when I was writing about Earth Day and how Gaylord Nelson started it. Schneider, Keith. "Gaylord A. Nelson, Founder of Earth Day, Is Dead at 89." The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 July 2005. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website, and it was helpful when I needed more things about Nelson when I was writing my Extend research paper. I used it in my paper s body. "The History of Earth Day." Earth Day Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website. It was helpful when I was making most of the body and when I needed information about Earth Day and what was happening before Nelson. I used it in my main body and sections of Earth Day. "CONGRESSIONAL RECORD: Senator Gaylord Nelson Introduces Legislation to Ban DDT 1966 Roger Blobaum." Roger Blobaum. N.p., 27 Nov. 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website. It was 6
most helpful when I needed a more in detail review on DDT when I was researching DDT and it s connections to Nelson. I used it in my section on DDT. "1964-1966 DDT BAN Senator Gaylord Nelson Archives Roger Blobaum." Roger Blobaum. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017.It s a website. It was most helpful defining DDT when I was making the section on DDT. "Wilderness.org." Gaylord Nelson Wilderness.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website. I was originally going to use this in my paper, but because of lack of depth I couldn t put it into a section. "Gaylord Anton Nelson." EEK! - Gaylord Anton Nelson - Father of Earth Day. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website. It helped when I was find sources on DDT and about his life. It helped me most in the background of Nelson. NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website. It helped me most when I just started researching him and on his speeches. I used it in the background. Quirmbach, Chuck. "Earth Day Founder Gaylord Nelson Dies." NPR. NPR, 04 July 2005. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website. I originally planned it to be in my paper but I took out it. "Modest Beginnings: Nelson's Idea on a Plane." Nelsonearthday.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website. I used it in the main paragraphs of my thesis and in my main body. "Meet Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day." Nelsonearthday.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. It s a website. I used it most in the main body of my paper. 7
8