Happy Earthday Everyone!

Gaylord Nelson on the right beside President Kennedy.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1942, Gaylord Nelson was drafted into the U.S. Army.  After World War II ended, he returned to his native state and to politics, the profession he was bred to pursue.  His great-grandfather was a founding member of the Republican Party.  His father was a mayor.  When Gaylord was nine, his dad took him to hear Progressive Party firebrand Robert M. La Follette campaign from the back of a train. 

On their way home, the boy's father asked him if the experience had made him want to go into politics when he grew up.  

"Yes, he replied."  "But I'm afraid by the time I grow up Bob La Follette will have settled all the problems and there will be nothing for me to do."

After practicing law briefly in Madison, Nelson served in the state legislature and as governor before running for the U.S. Senate in 1962.  In Washington, he found that Senator La Follette had left plenty for him to do.  Nelson's passion was conservation, which he successfully urged President Kennedy to discuss on a coast-to-coast tour.  Nelson's crusade was nearly drowned out by the political furor surrounding the Vietnam War, which Nelson came to oppose.  But a tactic of the peace activists -- campus "teach-ins" -- inspired him.  Why not adopt that method for environmental issues?  Speaking to Seattle conservationist in 1969, Nelson called for a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment the following Spring. He invited everyone to participate. 

"The response was electric,"  he recalled in 2005.  "Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country.  The American people finally had a forum to express concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air--and they did so with spectacular exuberance."

The upshot was Earth Day, celebrated for the first time on this date, and every ensuring April.  Many conservationists consider April 22, 1970, the day that signifies the birth of the modern environmental movement. 

"Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level," Gaylord Nelson wrote.  "We had neither the time nor the resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated.  That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day.  It organized itself." 
(Excerpted from "On This Date" by Carl M. Cannon.)


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Earth Day has been celebrated on this date since the early 70's.  It is a day dedicated to Gaia -- the planet, not the internet TV station with Regina Meredith.  Earth Day is real, no matter what the Right Wing Lunatics want you to believe.   At last count, the Academies of Science from 80 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position that Climate Change is Real.

Still the deniers are out there, as on this day in April of 2009, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota delivered this message from the House of Representatives:

"As a matter of fact, carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful!   But there isn't one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.  There isn't one study because carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas--it is a harmless gas.  Carbon dioxide is natural.  It is not harmful.  It is part of earth's life cycle."

Update:  Michele Bachmann is so evil, in 2012 she applied for a Swiss citizenship.   Yeah, another patriotic Republican Congressperson who's true interest in US politics is to confuse the truth for her own personal gain, and then take the money and run to a Climate Conscious Country.   Also worth noting, Bachmann runs a Christian Organization who was under investigation for stealing email addresses so she could mass-market parents with more Eco lies. And finally, Bachmann said in 2019:

"...we will in all likelihood never see a more godly, biblical president (than Donald Trump) again in our lifetime...."

And again I have to ask you my dear Republican friends:  Is this really the government you want?   If so, why don't you and Michele suck the tailpipe of a Mercedes for just five-minutes and tell me carbon dioxide is safe?

Michele Bachmann: Carbon Dioxide denier.

Happy Earth Day Everyone!   Their days are numbered.   Truth is coming and they don't like it.   We are turning on the light on their lies and they are running like roaches.

You Talking To Me!