Support Beyond Pesticides
Dear Beyond Pesticides
Friend and Supporter:
This is an extraordinary time. So, I have to depart a bit from my normal
Fall fundraising appeal letter in which I explain how critical your support
is to our program (I will get to that) in order to share with you this
exciting moment in history! I am among those who draw inspiration
from this recent national election. I imagine that you do as well.
The election has done something very special – it has energized people to get involved in the political process and feel a sense of empowerment and expectation. Canvassing in a multi-cultural neighborhood in the exurbia of Virginia to get out the vote in the days leading up to the election reinforced my clear sense that people are ready to engage. Watching my own children, a teenager and twenty-something, I’ve seen cynicism turn to engagement rooted in the kindling of a new belief that the impossible is possible when people get involved.
John Lewis, civil rights leader and Congressman from Georgia told MSNBC after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, “I never imagined, I never even had any idea, I would live to see an African-American president of the United States. . . We have witnessed tonight in America a revolution of values, a revolution of ideals. . . There’s been a transformation of America, and it will have unbelievable influence on the world.”
After the election, Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times a piece, “The Obama Dividend,” in which he cites the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking to the Hawaii legislature in 1959 and quoting a prayer from a preacher who had been a slave: “Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but thank God, we ain’t what we was.”
No matter whether you believe in the change articulated by President-elect Obama or are skeptical, we as a nation seem to be in agreement that this national election has shattered many conventions of what has been thought to be possible in the United States –starting with race, and extending to the degree of public involvement and activism, the interest of young people, the ability to raise untainted funds through individual small donations, voter turnout, and the red-blue political paradigm.
In this context, I’m charged up about shattering the conventions that enable toxic pesticides to poison our air, water, soil and food –the toxic treadmill that plagues our country and world and unnecessarily harms the health of people and the environment. Just as the conventional political wisdom betrayed people’s potential, conventional wisdom incorrectly advises us that toxic dependency is required to maintain our quality of life, protect our health, and grow our food. But we know differently. People, in increasing numbers, are rejecting the use of toxic pesticides around children, throughout our communities, in buildings and on landscapes. Schools and hospitals are adopting pesticide-free strategies which serve as models for other institutions. And the number of organic consumers is growing. With this core, Beyond Pesticides this summer stopped a Farm Bill amendment that would have prevented USDA from prohibiting hazardous pesticides as a part of its conservation program.
Now is the time for us to elevate our voice and expand our coalition, to shatter the toxic dependency conventions more broadly. One critical convention that we are working to shatter is the validity of existing risk assessments used to regulate pesticides. Risk assessment has been used to justify unnecessary harm and destruction –a method of regulating that accepts a high degree of uncertainty and allows known and undefined hazards, despite the availability of safe alternatives. This is a convention that we can overcome, investing in its replacement with a precautionary approach driven by green practices and policies.
When Beyond Pesticides was founded, we were told that organic farming was not commercially viable. Now, two decades later it is viewed as the most viable part of the farm sector. With facts and inspiration we can move ahead. The ingredient that has been nurtured and unleashed in the recent election is people’s belief that we can make a difference.
As the President–elect said right after his election, “This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.”
I deeply believe that Beyond Pesticides’ voice is a critical part of that change. Our voice reflects the voices of the thousands of people who contact us annually in their struggle to protect the health of their children, families and communities –people who understand that our poisoning of the ecosystem, the disappearance of the bees, and our dependence on petroleum-based chemicals that contribute to global warming destroy the foundation of life, while green solutions are within our reach.
I’ve read that tenacity is out and audacity is in. I would like to see us nurture and use our tenacity in being audacious as we challenge policy, science and the marketplace to protect, not poison, health and the environment.
Please consider a donation to Beyond Pesticides at this transformational time –enable us to speak loudly and support action. With your support, we can.
Best wishes for a
healthy holiday season,
Jay Feldman
Executive Director
For $150 or more: A gift for you...Be among the first to see the film.
A
Sense of Wonder
Rachel Carson’s love of the natural world and her fight to defend
it
When pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, the backlash from her critics thrust her into the center of a political maelstrom. Despite her love of privacy, Carson’s convictions and her foresight regarding the risks posed by chemical pesticides forced her into a very public and controversial role.
Using many of Ms. Carson’s own words, Kaiulani Lee embodies this extraordinary woman in a documentary style film, which depicts Carson in the final year of her life. Struggling with cancer, Carson recounts with both humor and anger the attacks by the chemical industry, the government, and the press as she focuses her limited energy to get her message to Congress and the American people.
For $150, you can receive the film A Sense of Wonder on DVD. With this level donation, you may receive additional copies for each $25 that you donate.