Be good to your mother

Reading about yesterday's memorial service for Gaylord Nelson made me glad the old guy was around. I confess that until earlier this year I didn't know much about him--I didn't know that a Wisconsin governor and senator founded Earth Day, a holiday that I have chiefly associated with the time a woman I dated in college injured her back when she fell off a large, inflatable Earth.

But I learned about Nelson and Earth Day last spring, when I took a group of kids to the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame in Stevens Point. Much of the exhibit space there is given over to Nelson, and he naturally is a member of the hall of fame, too. Now I'm a reasonably environmentally conscious guy anyway, but that visit made me think about conservation in new ways, and this past Earth Day, I felt newly wistful and grateful and sad about good old Earth.

I felt especially sad about the environmental policies of George W. Bush, who in the opening weeks of his presidency reversed a campaign pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; and the outrages have only mounted from there. The night before last I saw the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and I was horrified to be reminded that Ken Lay's name was batted around as a possible Secretary of Energy in the Bush Administration. What sort of environmental stewardship do you suppose Lay would have overseen?

Adieu, Gaylord Nelson, and thanks for the holiday.