Programming a podcast is fun. I was thrilled when Earth Day Royalty, Tia Nelson, responded to our request that she come on the podcast with an enthusiastic “how about tomorrow?” So on Earth Day Eve, she and I hit the Zoom and had a lovely conversation about her inspiration, her father, the late Senator Gaylord Nelson, her current work to bring people together on climate change, and her commitment to bipartisanship.
Fun fact: Tia and I overlapped at The Nature Conservancy, where she worked for 17 years, in her last position as the first director of the Conservancy’s Global Climate Change Initiative. (This was back in the day when climate change was gaining traction as a top environmental and conservation priority.)
As she mentions in our conversation, Tia was in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 when President George H.W. Bush signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Earth Summit, the U.S. commitment to help fight global warming.
Eventually Tia left TNC and returned home to Wisconsin to serve as Executive Secretary to the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, which included a gubernatorial appointment as co‐chair of Wisconsin’s Task Force on Global Warming.
Tia is internationally recognized as a tireless champion for environmental stewardship and climate change education, and I felt privileged to get to have this conversation with her. Now I happily share it with you.