The world is celebrating 50 years of Earth Day. Meet the man who made it happen

Paul “Pete” McCloskey is one of the unsung heroes of the modern environmental movement.

The former Republican Congressman, who served as a Marine second lieutenant that led six bayonet charges in the Korean War and came home with two Purple Hearts, the Silver Star and the Navy Cross, is an author of countless environmental bills passed in the 1970s — including the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

But it was his partnership with Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Gaylord Nelson, the man who envisioned the nationwide demonstration we now celebrate as Earth Day, that really reinforces his place in American history. Today, the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the successful — and bipartisan — April 22, 1970, launch of that now annual event.

On that day, 20 million Americans in 2,000 communities and 10,000 schools planted trees, cleaned up parks, buried cars in mock graves, marched, listened to speeches and protested how humans were messing up the planet. It was the largest demonstration in the history of the nation — far larger, for perspective, than the Women’s March in 2017.

Sen. Nelson came up with the idea for a 1970 teach-in on the environment after 3 million gallons of oil spilled on the beaches of Santa Barbara and killed 10,000 seabirds in January 1969. Nelson was a longtime conservationist in Wisconsin, the home state of preservationists John Muir and Aldo Leopold.

The genius of Earth Day, wrote environmental historian Adam Rome, was that Nelson chose not to micromanage the teach-in and instead allowed it to grow from the grassroots.

Nelson’s first step? Reaching out to McCloskey, a Republican, and a former environmental attorney from California.

When asked, McCloskey said he was pleased to bring a bipartisan voice to the national demonstration 50 years ago that started the modern environmental movement.

Denis Hayes, the staff director of the first Earth Day who was hired by Nelson, led a political campaign after Earth Day that targeted a “Dirty Dozen” of lawmakers from both parties that had bad environmental records. Those efforts tapped into the green wave started by Earth Day, and by November 1972, seven of the dozen had been defeated — two senior Democrats and five Republicans.

“Gaylord’s great insight was that there was a growing discontent that the quality of life was deteriorating,” Hayes said in an interview.

More important political leaders from both parties, including President Richard Nixon, recognized that environmental issues were important to Americans weary of polluted air over cities and rivers so toxic people couldn’t swim. A green generation, educated and energized by the hundreds of demonstrations nationwide, carried those lessons forward.

“Nelson’s willingness to let others take ownership of the teach-in made Earth Day even more powerful,” said Rome, author of the book “The Genius of Earth Day.”

Then Congress passed the 28 major initiatives that became the foundation of the nation’s environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act and amendments strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act.

McCloskey, now 92, supported Nelson, a key Congressman, in the passage of those fundamental environmental laws.

His leadership on environmental issues continued after the first Earth Day, and he remains a fighter for the cause, hoping the 50th anniversary brings out a new generation to fight climate change.

Sen. Nelson’s daughter Tia, a long-time climate activist and current director of the Outsider Foundation in Madison, Wisconsin, recently traveled to the home of McCloskey and his wife, Helen, in Rumsey, California, to interview the congressman about the first Earth Day.

Tia Nelson

Tell me about your memories in terms of meeting Gaylord and how you recall early conversations with my father.

Pete McCloskey

Well, It wasn’t much of a conversation.

I was in the House; I was elected in 1967. Its 1969, so I’m in my second term. I’m hated essentially by the Republican Party because I oppose the Vietnam War. I know Nixon is a crook. I’d been an environmental lawyer, and I’d seen California threatened as Gaylord had seen Wisconsin threatened by pollution.

So I got a call: “This is Gaylord Nelson, the senator from Wisconsin, and I’m sponsoring a teach-in on the environment April 22nd and I’d like it to be both bicameral and bipartisan. I wonder if you would willing to be my Republican co-chair.”

As far as I knew there weren’t any environmentalists. I didn’t know anybody in the Senate; I didn’t like (Republican Sen.) George Murphy, anyway. So, I said of course. And then we met.

He was just a humble, quiet gentlemen, and we had the same views on everything. Like the war. We had time to sit down at the Conservation Foundation. So the three of us, Sid (Howe, president of the Conservation Foundation) was going try to raise the money. He raised $20,000. Gaylord put in $12,000 of his own money from speeches, and he got a couple of thousand dollars from a couple of labor leaders.

He wanted it to be kids. He wanted the kids to run it. He wanted to excite the kids like the teach-ins on the war had been done. His great concept was getting the energy of youth to work on good causes. It wasn’t just the environment. He was interested in ghettos, poverty, social justice, civil rights. So, we got to know each other pretty well. We both agreed on the same things. He’d been in the infantry, and I’d been in the infantry — the Marines.

I came to love him. He was as much a mentor to me and an inspiration as anyone in Congress.

He was just a leader he was a great human being.

Tia

Yeah, He sure was.

Pete

He loved people; he loved the land. He didn’t want to see anybody killed. I can’t think of anybody I had more respect for.

Your father and I weren’t just friends, we were soulmates.

Tia

It’s inspiring to hear your words describing that time and that critical moment in American history. And the environmental decade is launched, more environmental laws are passed, and you were the author of some really important ones, the Endangered Species Act…

Pete

Listen, I was a pygmy next to your Dad. His idea to revolutionize and bring pressure on politicians by young people and to use the energy of young people who, you know, have always been the leaders — civil rights, human rights — its always been young people who took on the establishment. It wouldn’t have happened without him. If he hadn’t had that idea, if he hadn’t raised $100,000 to fund a bunch of kids working in Washington and then what they did afterwards is precisely what he wanted. They turned out 7 members of the House of Representatives. 7 When Congress convened in January, two thirds of the House and Senate both Republicans and Democrats had become environmentalists.

He revolutionized this country. He, one man, like Martin Luther King. I put him in the same class as Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech. He revolutionized the whole environment.

Rocky Barker is an environmental writer from Boise Idaho who retired from daily newspaper journalism in 1918 after 43 years. He is the author of Saving All the Parts: Reconciling Economics and the Endangered Species Act and Scorched Earth: How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed America.