Power of One: Lynzy Lab

Lynzy Lab, October 7, 2018:

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Lyrics are here.

Lynzy Lab on Kimmel, October 11:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN-3F8T4t5w

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Here’s my latest, which I’m sharing because it’s one of those rare stories about environmental horrors that’s somewhat uplifting.
Well, I hope it is anyway.

It’s about a small group of Oregonians who banned aerial spraying of pesticides in their county. I first learned about their effort when I was out in Lincoln County visiting Carol Van Strum last year. Carol told me the county had recently voted to stop the practice and I remember being surprised to hear that airplanes and helicopters were still showering down these chemicals. Carol had helped ban aerial spraying in National Forests in the 1980s, but apparently, the practice continues on some private timberland.

I didn’t think much more about the Oregon county ordinance until I came across it in some CropLife America documents a few months ago and realized just how upset the chemical industry was by this tiny group of activists. The national pesticide industry trade group talked about its fight against the handful of local volunteers as one of its five major accomplishments of 2017.

My favorite part of reporting this (besides going to coastal Oregon – so nice!) was telling Dan Meek, the attorney representing the community rights groups in Oregon, about the industry campaign against them and hearing him break into hysterical laughter. I was reading to him over the phone from an internal list detailing the industry’s efforts to fight these activists. “…brainstorming sessions, meetings with key players, sentiment research, direct mailers, social media research on voters; creating a “secret Facebook page,” auditing the strategies of small environmental groups,” I was saying. There was more on the list but I couldn’t keep going because Meek was laughing too hard to hear me. And I saw his point: a trade group representing billion-dollar companies was doing all this to fight a small group of pissed-off volunteers. It was truly ridiculous.

Anyway, writing this reminded me of how much a committed group of activists can do and how important it is to keep a sense of humor even — especially? — when dealing with awful stuff.

— Sharon Lerner

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September 15, 2018