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For Alumni & Friends of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison SPRING 2010 Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day, and the Nelson Institute Looking back…and ahead…in a milestone year ENERGIZED! Good chemistry recharges a 30-year-old certificate program A SENSE OF PLACE Immersion experiences shape perceptions PREPARING TO ADAPT Strategizing for climate change in Wisconsin NO HIGHER CALLING Q&A with Christine Thomas Students assemble a five-story replica of Earth on Washington’s National Mall in 1995 for the Students assemble a five-story replica of Earth on Washington’s National Mall in 1995 for the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. Inset: Gaylord Nelson greets a constituent. 25th anniversary of Earth Day. Inset: Gaylord Nelson greets a constituent Together. For the planet. News and events It was a remarkable event. Twenty million Americans came together in small towns and major cities to take action on April For more news from the Nelson 22, 1970. The first Earth Day was the largest grassroots dem- Institute and details of upcoming onstration in American history. Almost overnight, the right to a events, visit our home page: clean and healthy environment, championed across time and nelson.wisc.edu the political spectrum by the likes of Theodore Roosevelt and Locate other alumni - and Rachel Carson, became the nation’s chorus. A decade of sweep- ing environmental legislation and reform followed. help us reach you Forty years later, diverse coalitions—concerned about cli- The Wisconsin Alumni Association mate change, food security, health, energy supplies, and clean offers a free online service to help water—again address local and global environmental challenges. locate UW–Madison graduates. Visit As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and the uwalumni.com and log in to the Alumni Nelson Institute, the past informs our present and future. Directory. Use the “Update Profile” Walter Cronkite, anchor of CBS News, described the first Earth Day activists as “predomi- page to keep your own listing and nately young, predominately white.” But Cronkite’s impression was not all that Wisconsin mailing address current. This helps Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day’s founder, hoped for. “Any national policy on the environ- ensure that you continue to receive ment that is worth its name,” Nelson argued the week before Earth Day, “must mean attack- In Common. ing the problem of our cities and the poor as much as it means providing national parks and scenic rivers.” Alumni networking online At a Denver gathering on that first Earth Day, Nelson repeated that the “environment is all Nelson Institute alumni can find of America and its problems. It is rats in the ghetto. It is a hungry child in a land of afflu- opportunities for social networking ence. It is housing that is not worthy of the name; neighborhoods not fit to inhabit.” Nelson on Facebook.com and for professional understood that the environment encompasses more than wild and scenic lands. It reaches networking on LinkedIn.com. Visit beyond dying songbirds, burning rivers, and sulfur-ridden skies to include the problems of nelson.wisc.edu/community/alumni poverty, inadequate housing, hunger, and disease. In Nelson’s words, “the ironclad connec- and click on the appropriate links. tion between the environment and economy” affirms that environmental problems are also problems of economic and social injustice. The Institute for Environmental Studies was established just months before Earth Day to grapple with these same problems in innovative ways. Renamed for Gaylord Nelson in 2002, In Common is published by the Nelson the institute today is driven by his broad vision. More than ever, our programs and activities Institute for Environmental Studies at are aligned toward the common goal of building sustainable communities and enhancing life the University of Wisconsin–Madison. for all. Funding for production and distribu- Last May, a group of our faculty members, students, and alumni boarded a bus to Chicago. tion is provided through the generosity We sought to understand how historical interactions between people and land have shaped of our alumni and friends. In Common the city’s cultures, values, traditions, infrastructure, and quality of life. is available online in PDF format at We visited Packingtown and its Bubbly Creek, made famous by Upton Sinclair’s nelson.wisc.edu/community/alumni. The Jungle. We explored the Indiana Dunes, a birthplace of ecology. And we met with Little Tom Sinclair, Editor Village Environmental Justice Organization and Growing Home on Chicago’s west and south Nancy Rinehart, Designer sides. Believing that environmental quality and economic development are inextricably Jenny Klaila, Production Editor intertwined, both groups use integrated approaches to bring renewal to communities fac- ing some of the city’s highest rates of diabetes, asthma, crime, poverty, and unemployment. Nelson Institute Growing Home sees vacant land not as blight but as space with the potential to provide fresh, for Environmental Studies organic produce to neighborhoods often described as food deserts because they lack access 30B Science Hall, 550 N. Park St. to healthy, fresh food. Madison, WI 53706–1491 Across the United States and the globe, similar community experiments seek solutions to (608) 263–5599 poverty and unemployment in ways that also address climate change, health disparities, and [email protected] energy needs. These efforts affirm Gaylord Nelson’s message that economic renewal depends COVER PHOTOS: WISCONSIN HISTORICAL on restoring the environment in which we live, work, and play. It is a message worth resurrect- SOCIETY ARCHIVES ing as we work together. For the planet. Gregg Mitman Interim Director 2 In Common AROUND THE NELSON INSTITUTE Origins of environmentalism People around the globe will media from Nelson’s three terms “Anyone interested century,” says CHE director th mark the 40 anniversary of as a U.S. senator and his subse- in Nelson or the history William Cronon. “Anyone inter- Earth Day this spring. quent work as counselor of the ested in Nelson or the history How did this unique annual Wilderness Society. of environmentalism of environmentalism will want observance come to pass? How Links from primary pages will want to explore to explore this site, which also did it change the course of take the reader to original docu- this site.” offers a treasure trove of online political life across the country ments that can be viewed online documents as a model for how and around the world? Why does or printed. The documents are American environmentalism,” archival materials can be made it continue to resonate with so from the Wisconsin Historical says Gregg Mitman, interim more widely available over the many people? Society’s extensive collection of director of the Nelson Institute. Web.” A new Web site, “Gaylord papers from Gaylord Nelson’s The Web site is a cooperative The historical society is Nelson and Earth Day: career donated by the former venture of the Nelson Institute staging two companion exhibits The Making of the Modern senator 20 years ago. An index Center for Culture, History, this spring: one about Gaylord Environmental Movement,” tells of the site’s material and links and Environment (CHE); the Nelson and Earth Day, at the the story of Earth Day founder to more online resources are historical society; and the Nelson Wisconsin Historical Museum in Gaylord Nelson and how his available. family. downtown Madison, the other idea, conceived as a “national “’Gaylord Nelson and Earth “Gaylord Nelson is today about Gaylord Nelson’s life and teach-in on the environment,” Day’ is a remarkable resource best remembered as the father career, at the society’s headquar- became a historic turning point. for teachers, students, scholars, of Earth Day, but his politi- ters on Library Mall. The site, at nelsonearthday. and citizens wanting to learn cal career offers a wider and For further details about the net, contains more than 200 more about the values, people, more revealing window on the Web site, visit nelsonearthday. Web pages with more than 500 ideas, and social movements transformation of American net/about. For information about original documents, images, that have come to shape environmental politics during the exhibits, visit nelsonearthday. quotes, video clips, and audio the changing landscape of the middle decades of the 20th net/exhibits. w Home page of “Gaylord Nelson and Earth Day: The Making of the Modern Environmental Movement” Spring 2010 3 AROUND THE NELSON INSTITUTE Earth Day at 40 It was, according to American Heritage magazine, “one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy.” The first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, inspired 20 million people to participate in environmental “teach-ins” across the United States. we learned since 1970, and Margaret Atwood, SC Johnson The event realized the goal what should be our pathways chairman and CEO Fisk that its founder, U.S. Senator to environmental change in the Johnson, Wilderness Society Our national parks Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, 21st century? How can we har- president William Meadows, and If you’ve seen Ken Burns’ had set for it: to put the environ- ness new ideas, technologies, environmental justice scholar latest documentary film, ment firmly on the national social networks and other tools Dorceta Taylor. The event also about America’s national agenda. Today it is observed in to bring positive change? will form part of the celebration th parks, on PBS, you prob- almost every country on Earth. “Earth Day at 40: Valuing of the 40 anniversary of the ably noticed that environ- Wisconsin has long been Wisconsin’s Environmental Nelson Institute, established in mental historian William a leader in environment and Traditions, Past, Present and 1970 and renamed for Gaylord Cronon appears frequently conservation, home to indi- Future,” the Nelson Institute’s Nelson in 2002.