The Lady Bird Johnson Environmental Award honors outstanding achievements in the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural world that embrace Mrs. Johnson's style, energy, and commitment to her work. It salutes the efforts of Americans who are making a positive impact on the environment by successfully collaborating with communities and engaging others in their mission by reaching out to diverse sectors.
The award was created by the Board of Trustees of the LBJ Foundation to honor the former First Lady on her 80th birthday and to underscore her devotion to conservation and the environment. Former recipients include Vice President Al Gore, U.S. Senator John Chafee, Governor Bruce Babbitt, Patrick Noonan, Michael Dombeck, Ted Turner, Ken Burns, and Laurance Rockefeller.
On May 21, 2015, Ted Turner, entrepreneur and philanthropist, was presented with the Lady Bird Johnson Environmental Award at a ceremony at the LBJ Library. Veteran CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer conducted a conversation with the iconoclastic media mogul to discuss his support of efforts to improve air and water quality, develop a sustainable energy future, safeguard environmental health and maintain wildlife habitat protection through the Turner Foundation.
An early advocate of alternative energy sources, Turner believes that investing in renewable energy is not only a prudent financial decision but also a crucial step toward ensuring our planet’s future health. Turner is also one of the largest landowners in North America, and his Turner Endangered Species Fund works to conserve biodiversity of endangered or imperiled species.
On April 27, 2017, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns was awarded the Lady Bird Johnson Environmental Award. After the award presentation, which included President and Lady Bird Johnson's daughters, Luci and Lynda, Burns sat in conversation with former LBJ Library Director Mark K. Updegrove.
Burns was honored with the award for his The National Parks: America's Best Idea documentary which captured an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone.
On April 24, 2018, the foundation honored former Vice President Al Gore. Gore spends the majority of his time as chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a non-profit organization he founded that is focused on solutions for the global climate crisis. He is the author of the bestsellers Earth in the Balance, An Inconvenient Truth, The Assault on Reason, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, and most recently, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. He is the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary and is the co-recipient, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for "informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change."
