MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We want to say a few words about Ted Turner now, who died Wednesday at 87. His legacy includes more than launching CNN, the first 24-hour cable news network. Molly Samuel from member station WABE reports on Ted Turner the philanthropist.
MOLLY SAMUEL, BYLINE: Turner believed CEOs have a responsibility to the world beyond just generating wealth.
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TED TURNER: We have numerous debts.
SAMUEL: He spoke about it in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations in 2010.
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TURNER: We have debts to education, because education, without it, we wouldn't be where we are. And we have debts to our government and to society as a whole.
SAMUEL: Turner gave $1 billion to create the United Nations Foundation in the late '90s. At the time, it was the biggest individual charitable gift in history, according to the group. He was a cofounder of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which seeks to reduce weapons of mass destruction. And he was an active environmentalist. As one of the biggest landowners in the country, he preserved more than 2 million acres for hunting, fishing and endangered species.
LEESA CARTER-JONES: I mean, he was the precedent-setter for large philanthropic giveaways.
SAMUEL: Leesa Carter-Jones is the CEO of the Captain Planet Foundation, an environmental organization Turner cofounded, named after the Earth-saving cartoon superhero in the animated show. She says he inspired other billionaires to give their wealth away. And Captain Planet inspired a generation of kids.
CARTER-JONES: I tell you, I can't go to a single conference or a single event within the environment and philanthropic and social good community, and people don't come up and start serenading me with the show.
SAMUEL: In that 2010 interview, Turner said he was inspired by his father.
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TURNER: He suggested to me that I should set my goals so high that I couldn't possibly achieve them in my lifetime, so I'd always have something to look forward to. And I did that.
SAMUEL: He said he was trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons, solve climate change and eliminate poverty.
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TURNER: And I'm over my head.
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TURNER: But happily so.
SAMUEL: In a letter to the Giving Pledge, a group of wealthy philanthropists who have promised to give away most of their money, Turner wrote his charitable giving, more than 1.3 billion, was one of his proudest accomplishments and the best investment he ever made.
For NPR News, I'm Molly Samuel in Atlanta.
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