Earth Day was founded by Wisconsin’s very own Gaylord Nelson. Then a senator, and former Wisconsin governor, Nelson had a simple idea for a day of awareness for the planet.

The year was 1970. Gas was cheap. There were no regulations like the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act to keep factories from polluting our air, land, and water. A rising consciousness after several environmental disasters had the country buzzing with a desire to do more.

His idea took off, and millions joined in across the country. Today, Earth Day is celebrated by more than a billion people around the globe.

Nelson’s daughter, Tia, is paving the way for his legacy to live on through her environmental advocacy. She is the managing director on climate at the Outrider Foundation. In this episode, she sheds light on her father’s work, what Earth Day means to her and how you can get involved.

Learn more about Nelson’s legacy in the spring issue of Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine: https://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/

Learn more about Outrider Foundation at https://outrider.org/features/earth-day-film/
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TRANSCRIPT
Announcer: [00:00:00] Welcome to Wisconsin DNRs Wild Wisconsin - Off The Record podcast, information straight from the source.

Katie Grant: [00:00:12] Welcome back to another episode of Wild Wisconsin - Off The Record. I'm your host, DNRs digital media coordinator, Katie Grant. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. That's 50 years of living, changing and advancing. In 1970 a gallon of gas was 36 cents. The Beatles released, "Let it be" and then later broke up and a quarter would get you a dozen eggs.

It was also the year of the very first Earth Day founded by former Wisconsin governor Gaylord Nelson. It was a time when factories pumped pollutants into the air, lakes and rivers with few repercussions. Gas guzzling cars ruled the roads. Before 1970 there was no EPA, no Clean Air Act, and no Clean Water Act.

Then a senator, Gaylord Nelson, had an idea to raise awareness about air and water pollution. His idea took off and on the first Earth Day in 1970 millions of Americans participated in rallies, marches and teach-ins for environmental education across the country. Earth Day catalyzed a movement in the United States that founded the Environmental Protection Agency and ignited a spirit of stewardship that has driven progress for five decades.

Today, Earth Day is celebrated around the world with billions of people participating in their own way. Although Gaylord Nelson passed away in 2005, his legacy lives on through his daughter, Tia, who was 14 at the time of the first Earth Day. She has since followed in her father's environmental protection footsteps.

Today, Tia Nelson is the managing director on climate for the Outrider Foundation. She is internationally recognized as a champion for environmental stewardship and climate change. Before the Safer at Home order, we spoke with Tia in early March to hear more about her father's life work, what Earth Day means to her and how you can get involved.

Just because most of us are at home doesn't mean you can't celebrate Earth Day this year as we all do what we can to slow the spread of COVID-19, the DNR encourages you to celebrate 50 years of Earth Day close to home. Be sure to practice social distancing if you're out in the community.

At the Wisconsin DNR, we embrace Earth Day 365. For us, every day is Earth Day. Sit back and listen in to how a Wisconsin senator helped establish Earth Day 50 years ago and how his daughter keeps his memory alive today.

Tia Nelson: [00:02:37] My name is Tia Nelson. I'm managing director for the climate change program at the Outrider Foundation. We seek to educate, engage, and inspire action on big global challenges like climate change, help people understand the risks, but importantly also help them understand the opportunities to be a part of the solution.

Katie Grant: [00:03:00] Fantastic. So you could be doing anything in the world. Why are you so passionate about the environment?

Tia Nelson: [00:03:07] I have always had a love of nature. I spent a lot of time in the outdoors as a child. I went on to study wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin. I had wanted to be a veterinarian, but I'm pretty severely dyslexic, and so I struggled in school and once I found out that veterinarians had to go to school as long as doctors did, I figured that wasn't the best path for me.

And I had the real privilege to study under, uh Joe Hickey, uh, who had done really important early work on how DDT was thinning, uh, eggshells and impairing, uh, the reproduction of bird species, especially, uh, predators, um, in Wisconsin and across the country. It was a big inspiration to my father who then went on to introduce the first bill to ban the use of DDT.

So I was, uh, influenced, um, by great professors like Joe Hickey, uh, Orin, Ronstead, uh, Bob McCabe. Um, Bob was Dean of the Wildlife Ecology school.

When I, uh, started attending the university and he actually inscribed, uh, and gave to my father the first day that my father was sworn in as governor, uh, a inscribed first edition copy of the Sand County Almanac with a beautiful inscription in it. I haven't here on my desk, um saying, um, "with and in between the lines of this book, you shall find great wisdom."

Um, so I guess that's a long way of saying that, uh, nature was imbued in me as a child just as it was for my father, and I just seem to gravitate to the issue naturally and studied it in school and went on to work in the Capitol.

I worked for the DNR as a fisheries technician summertimes while I was in college. It was a great job. Um, it's always been my life's work and my passion.

Katie Grant: [00:05:07] Yeah. Did you ever feel pressure to work in the environmental space or you just knew it was what you wanted to do?

Tia Nelson: [00:05:13] I just did it. It just was me. It was just a part of me and, uh, a keen interest of mine from a very young age.

Uh, it must have obviously been influenced by my father and his work. Um, but I don't remember an epiphany moment. Um, it simply was imbued in me from a very early age, and it wasn't something that I honestly gave a lot of thought to. It was just who I was.

Katie Grant: [00:05:43] Tell us a little bit about your father's legacy. For anyone who doesn't know, why is he so important to Wisconsin and Earth Day in general?

Tia Nelson: [00:05:50] Well, my father grew up in a small town called Clear Lake in Polk County in northwestern Wisconsin. Not far from the St. Croix River where he camped and fished and canoed and his experiences in nature as a child had a big influence on him.

The places his father took him, uh, the St. Croix, uh, which I just mentioned. Also, they visited the Apostle Islands. It's interesting for me to reflect on the fact that those childhood experiences in nature here in these magnificent, uh, natural landscapes in Wisconsin became inspiration for him once he was elected to office.

And he served in the state senate for 10 years. He became governor when I was two. In 1958, he was elected and he became known pr...