by Beth Gray

Today is the 40th anniversary of the celebration of the first Earth Day.  While today Earth Day and the sentiment surrounding it is a part of our everyday lives, the notion of a day to acknowledge the importance of being good stewards of our environment was not always so commonplace. 

In the early 1960s, Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) began to formulate ideas for what would eventually become the first Earth Day.  Disturbed by the fact that in the midst of other significant events of the decade, “the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country,” Nelson proposed to President John Kennedy that he undertake a national conservation tour.  Convinced by Senator Nelson’s argument that the environment was a key issue that was being overlooked in the political sphere, President Kennedy began his conservation tour in September 1963, traveling through 11 states in five days.  Senator Nelson himself acknowledges that the tour itself failed to achieve his ultimate goal of putting the state of the environment at the top echelons of the nation’s political agenda.  He continued to advocate for environmental protection, however, and it was in 1969 that the idea of Earth Day finally occurred to him.

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