Gaylord Nelson, Father of Earth Day - MINDS@UW Home

problematic oversimplifications of an extremely complex situation. On the other
hand, Leopold did not question that human agency was a fundamental to
ecological relationships. In other words, both utilitarians and preservationists
acted as if human beings were somehow outside of the very systems they sought
to manage or to protect. Conversely, Aldo Leopold believed that human beings
operated within ecological systems, a priori. Ultimately, what distinguished
human beings was their capacity for advanced moral reasoning within the realm
of their interrelated ecological relationships. According to Meine,
Human use of the earth and its material components was a given.
But human use, if undertaken without consideration of its moral
dimensions, threatened to become corrosive…Mindful of the limits
of scientific reasoning and unrestricted by the commands of
academic philosophy, Leopold allowed his intuitive sense of the
vital and indivisible earth to inform (though not dictate) his
conservation stance. 46
Thus Leopold, unlike Pinchot and unlike Muir, was
“…constitutionally forward looking…” in a unique way. He had articulated
a land ethic, a philosophical framework that was to inform the work of
Gaylord Nelson, directly and indirectly.
* * * * *
Gaylord Nelson‟s parents “…were active Progressives, deep believers in
the populist, reform politics of Robert M. “Fighting Bob” LaFollette...” 47 Nelson‟s
father, Doctor Anton Nelson, was “…a Progressive leader, often serving as the
46 Curt Meine, 110.
47 Bill Christofferson, 12.
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