The late Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, founded Earth Day in the wake of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill––then the largest in American history. Now, 55 years later, the problems that sparked Earth Day and its success are even more pervasive. Rising sea levels are displacing entire communities, wildfires are happening when they’re not supposed to, and species critical to our ecosystems are dwindling at an alarming rate. The impacts of human-caused climate change are landing on everyone’s doorstep and making headlines every day.
The first Earth Day triggered nearly 13,000 events nationwide and helped pave the way for the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the formation of the EPA. Yet today, April 22 doesn’t have the same grip on the public consciousness it once did. That got us wondering: How relevant is Earth Day in 2025? So we asked Tia Nelson––daughter of the founder and a lifelong environmentalist whose résumé includes stints at The Nature Conservancy and the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands––what Earth Day means in the current moment of climate urgency. What she told us goes back to the movement’s roots: a reminder that momentum can manifest differently in different communities, which is where the power of individual and collective action can really take hold.
AC: What inspired your father to create the first Earth Day?
Tia Nelson: My father––a public servant and environmental advocate––was on a plane flying home from Santa Barbara after bearing witness to what was the largest oil spill in American history. That’s when he read an article in a magazine called Ramparts on how antiwar campus teach-ins in the late ’60s were influencing nationwide dialogues on the morality of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. It was his aha moment. In 1969, he called for a teach-in on the environment, which later evolved into Earth Day. It went far beyond his vision: 20 million people gathered. It was the largest public event in U.S. history at the time. My dad would be delighted that it endures as a global reminder about our interdependence with the natural world.
AC: To go from an idea to 20 million people is quite something. Why do you think Earth Day had such success so quickly?
TN: There’s a book called The Genius of Earth Day by a professor named Adam Rome. He posits that it was the genius of my father to not prescribe how people responded on that day, how they engaged on the day, what they did on that day. It wasn’t a top-down prescription for action. It was a call to action, inviting people in their communities to do what made sense to them.
There was tree planting, there were protests, there were concerts. I remember seeing a picture of Madison, Wisconsin—where I was born and have a home—of a street called State Street, where an entomology professor had put up a fairly inexpensive cardboard display area in which he described and taught, there in the middle of the street, the benefits of insects in pollinating plants, helping to produce crops, and ensuring a healthy ecosystem. My point being that, a thousand different things were taken up by individuals and communities across the country, and my father encouraged people to do what made sense to them.
AC: How do we take that idea forward today?
TN: There’s an entry point for all of us. There’s moms for clean air. There are these faith groups and there are traditional environmental groups, like The Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and others. There are so many different entry points to being involved. As Bill McKibben often says when asked the question, “What can I do as an individual?” he says, “Don’t be an individual.” Join a group. Individual action matters and amplifies when you become part of a collective, whatever that might be, wherever you’re comfortable. Build that community and that co-commitment.
AC: How can those of us who are already taking action draw people from all walks of life to join in?
TN: Environmentalists––we’ve been talking to ourselves for a long time, using our own language, and not always effectively reaching beyond the environmental choir so to speak, to grow the congregation, and speak about these issues in a way that invites people into the conversation. People who aren’t dedicating a career to environmental protections and conservation.
That’s why the faith-based creation care movement is very interesting to me. In When the Earth Moves, the film I produced for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I recruited Varshini Prakash, the youth activist and co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, and Bob Inglis, former Republican congressman. Here’s a conservative Republican and evangelical Christian who believes in the creation care movement. Bob’s solution to climate change isn’t only a policy response, but that didn’t matter to me. What mattered to me was he was at the table. He speaks about environmentalism from a place of faith, and therefore can reach audiences that I could not reach, and I think that’s important.
AC: Big question: Can an individual still have hope that they can make a difference?
TN: Think of Rosa Parks, whose simple act of defiance to say “no” when told to move to the back of the bus advanced the civil rights movement in unimaginable ways, or Greta Thunberg, whose simple act of climate protest before the Swedish parliament with a sign launched the global youth movement. What gives me hope are these stories that remind us that we never know the outcome of our actions. The important thing is that we act and that we understand that the outcome can be unimaginable. These people acted from a place of principle and determination, and they couldn’t know that what they were doing would have the impact it had.
The first Earth Day was successful beyond my father’s wildest dreams. He never could have imagined the outcome. There are people who think Earth Day is a trite holiday at this point. But the fact that it endures as an annual, global event is an invitation to remind us what’s important about our interdependence on the natural world, and to take stock of where we’re at and where we’re going. It’s also a great time to remind ourselves that individual action matters.
AC: What are some climate-conscious habits you’ve adopted as an individual?
TN: I’ve been focused on reducing food waste. I have a vegetable garden that’s a source of both food and joy, and I compost all my food waste. But I’d still like to waste less. I’d rather have it just be scraps that I wasn’t going to eat, not stuff like a bundle of grapes that I forgot at the back of the refrigerator.
Globally, if food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world after China and the U.S. Not only is that a waste of our own money we spend as individuals, but think about about the whole chain of food production: the land required, the energy inputs to grow, harvest, process, and transport the crops, and the actual act of putting that food waste into a landfill where it’s going to further emit greenhouse gases in the decomposition process.
AC: What would you say to someone who doubts that their climate choices make a difference?
TN: They are important—not just because individual action matters, not just because we can have an impact by treading more lightly on this precious Earth, not just because cumulatively it matters, but because it’s important that we live our values. The size of the impact—while we should note it, understand it, and so on—it still matters irrespective of how small the impact might be because it’s a moral choice. It’s a way to remind ourselves, in a daily way, to live our values. Everything we do has an impact on the environment. Living our values: kindness for others, and translating this kindness for the environment—this matters. And so I think a lot about individual action on a daily basis, and see a lot of value in it.
AC: Do you ever get overwhelmed by the scope of the problems at hand? What helps keep you motivated?
TN: Right now, I’m in my partner’s cottage on Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest. And I love this little cottage. It’s on the water. When I’m feeling more despair or sadness about where we’re at, and how far we have to go, I often go and sit down on this log by the water and I watch the tide come in and go out, and remind myself that the tide has done that for eons—long, long before me, and will do so long, long after me. And try to put in perspective the journey.
I’ve gotten temperamental with people who talk about saving the planet. I think it’s sort of a silly framing. Humans, as a species, have been on the planet for just a moment of time in the history of planet Earth, and there’s great resiliency in the planet. Katharine Hayhoe, who’s the Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy, wrote a book called Saving Us, which discusses this idea nicely: It’s not about saving the planet, it’s about saving us and our relationship with the natural world. It’s this important distinction that will determine our quality of life.
We’ve edited this interview for clarity and brevity.