A lot of folks are asking "How can I be the most effective?" "What impact can I have on climate change?" and "How can I contribute to bringing about social justice?"
On the macro level, what makes a successful social movement? How do they develop, from the ground up? How can groups collaborate most efficiently? How best to target our efforts? What skills are needed? What kind of strategic planning is necessary, at what stages? On the personal level: what do you care about? What are you good at? What do you love doing? What do you know? Who do you know? We can use the answers to all these questions to plan, create, and sustain effective campaigns -- not just a protest march here, a banner-drop there.
For the
142nd Sustainability Salon (on Zoom), we'll continue our exploration of these ideas, as we figure out how to use our passion to create long-term campaigns. Last month, longtime activist and skilled movement trainer
Penn Garvin led an
interactive workshop (you can view the
recording online, if you weren't able to attend!) and this time we'll be considering some of the long-term campaigns around air quality that are active in our region. We'll brainstorm ways to improve them, and share stories, insights, resources, and victories -- as well as finding ways to connect more folks with this important work. We hope that a lot of local leaders, activists, and would-be activists will be able to join us for this series -- and are looking for Again, if you couldn't make the first one but want to join in the discussion, please view the
recording online -- that'll help get us all onto the same page, laying the groundwork for our discussions with particular regional campaigns. Documents and links associated with this series are provided
here.
Penn Garvin will be with us again, to frame our conversation. Penn began her activist work with the original Poor People's Campaign in 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King. She has worked on issues like human rights, women's health care, homelessness, Central America, peace, and the environment -- and has led workshops on organizing and non-violent civil resistance. She presently works with
Pennsylvania Action On Climate (PAC), and others from PAC will join the conversation.
Matthew Mehalik, the Executive Director of the
Breathe Project, will share the history of this collaborative and how it works to support many other groups in their own campaign work. Before that, he was Program Director for Sustainable Pittsburgh, where he founded the Champions of Sustainability business network. He also has a PhD in Systems Engineering, and teaches sustainability and environmental policy at CMU's Heinz College.
Hilary Flint is a resident of Enon Valley, PA -- just a mile away from East Palestine, OH. Even before February's catastrophic derailment, she was active with Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community (
BCMAC) and the Shell Accountability Campaign. Now she's also Vice President of the Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment.
Nickole Nesby is the former Mayor of Duquesne, PA, and now Environmental Justice Coordinator for
412Justice. With many years of legislative and executive branch experience, she knows well how things work -- and sometimes don't.
The next Sustainability Salon will probably be on December 10th -- check back on MarensList for the latest! And in the new year, very likely on January 21st, we will mark TWELVE YEARS of salons, by returning to the most important topic of the age -- climate change -- and continue this series about effective campaign work!
There are also a whole lot of other important events happening in our region; check out the list below!
With autumn closing in, we'll be on Zoom for the next several months. Zoom salons (and the Zoom side for hybrid events), start around 4 p.m., when presentations begin, and usually wind down sometime around 7 or 8 (informal discussion may continue after that -- join us for whatever time works for you!). If you're not already on my Eventbrite list, please email me (maren dot cooke at gmail dot com) with "salon" in the Subject line to be added -- and let me know how you heard about salons! If you RSVP via Eventbrite, you'll receive the Zoom registration link right away. Along about Saturday night/Sunday morning, I'll send it out again, with other information, to all who have RSVP'd. If you're new to Zoom, you may find my Zoom Reference Guide helpful.
Other events and whatnot:
• Oct 26: Physicians for Social Responsibility has a new report on PFAS in fracking. Join PSR, ProtectPT, FracTracker Alliance, Environmental Health Project, and Halt the Harm Network for a live (online) discussion.
• Oct 27: LaRoche University hosts the Global Problems/Global Solutions conference on environmental justice.
• Nov 5: Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light's annual conference: No Faith in Fossil Fuels. In-person (at Duquesne University and other locations around the state) and virtual options. More information and reservations here.
• Nov 8: Community response to the MetCoke Summit, at Frankie Pace Park, downtown. Featuring affected people from the Mon Valley and East Palestine, projections by Aaron Henderson, and the Pittsburgh Labor Choir. More details here!
• Nov 9: FracTracker Alliance's 9th annual Community Sentinel Awards.
• Nov 9: Women for a Healthy Environment hosts an evening with Carey Gillam, investigative journalist and author of The Monsanto Papers.
• Nov 11: Outdoor ceremony and cultural event marking the installation of a symbolic carving to face Clairton Cokeworks. Information and registration here -- and at the We Refuse To Die exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art (and online).
• Nov 14 (day): 11th Annual League of Women Voters Shale and Public Health Conference (free, in-person or virtual). Details and registration here.
• Nov 14 (evening): Join Beyond Plastics, the Years Project, the East Palestine Unity Council, and OnlyOne for a free virtual screening of a short film Small Town Explosion: What Really Happened in East Palestine? followed by discussion. More information and registration here.
• Concerned Health Professionals of NY recently released the 9th Edition of the Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas & Oil Infrastructure. Check it out!
• PA is considering legislation to (a) greatly increase the renewables portion of our electricity generation, and (b) enable community solar!! The Pennsylvania Solar Center has made it easy to speak out to support this action!
• This spring we learned a great deal about agriculture and the Farm Bill. You can use your voice to advocate for more-sustainable practices being supported at this link.
• We know that only a tiny fraction of plastic has ever been recycled. And yet, NPR has been airing sponsorship messages for the American Recycling Council, which is continuing to perpetrate the "recycling" hoax. Does that make your blood boil? The national group Beyond Plastics has a petition/sign-on letter to get them to stop -- please sign, for yourself or for an organization you represent!
• It's been more than a year now! You can support striking Post-Gazette workers here (and consider signing up for the alternative online publication, the Pittsburgh Union Progress -- and maybe even cancel your P-G subscription until they start treating workers fairly!). This strike has garnered national attention; one recent picket even made it into Teen Vogue.
• And speaking of solidarity, the Cop City controversy is still raging in Atlanta. More information and a support fund are here. There's also talk of a similar facility in the works for Pittsburgh.
• Another forest that needs protecting is Sherwood Forest, in Mason Co., WA -- at risk of clear-cutting by a company headquartered here in Pittsburgh. You can learn more (and donate to the legal fund if you can) here.
• PRC continues to hold online workshops about composting, rainwater harvesting, and waste reduction.
• Did you see the film The Story of Plastic, or the PBS doc Plastic Wars? (and/or join us for Plastic Paradise at a winter film salon six years ago?) ...What if you could bring up imagery of the toxic impacts of plastic production, and commentary by the people and communities living with them, over the world? You can do all that with the interactive Toxic Tours tool. Check it out!
For the uninitiated, a Sustainability Salon is an educational forum; it's a mini-conference; it's a venue for discussion and debate about important environmental issues (and often health, and justice, and politics); it's a house party (if there weren't a pandemic) with an environmental theme. Each month we have featured speakers on various aspects of a particular topic, interspersed with stimulating conversation, lively debate, and (when in person) delectable potluck food and drink and music-making through the evening. Originally a potluck mini-conference, the event has been mostly on Zoom since March 2020, except for some outdoor summer (and now hybrid!) salons.
Past topics have included movement-building and sustained campaigns, abandoned oil and gas wells, hope (finding it, creating it, using it), addressing environmental causes of cancer, a development proposal for Frick Park, single-use plastic legislation, home energy efficiency (and legislation to help fund improvements), the UN's COP process for climate negotiations, alternatives to single-use packaging, our region's air (part I and part II), activist art and America's Energy Gamble, advocacy opportunities, social justice games, fixing Pennsylvania state government, climate action, forest restoration, the history of American consumerism, regional air quality, preserving Pittsburgh's forests, climate modeling, approaches to pipelines, pipeline hazards, the legacy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the judiciary and fair elections, consumption, pandemics and air, election law and activism, air quality and environmental justice, social investment, local economies, the economics of energy, mutual aid networks, ocean health, the rise of the radical right, the back end of consumption, approaches to activism on fracking & climate, air quality, technology, and citizen science, single-use plastics, election activism, election law, whether to preserve existing nuclear power plants, advanced nuclear technologies, passenger and freight trains, consumption, plastics, and pollution, air quality, solar power, youth activism, greening business, greenwashing, the petrochemical buildout in our region, climate/nature/people, fracking, health, & action, globalization, ecological ethics, community inclusion, air quality monitoring, informal gatherings that turn out to have lots of speakers, getting STEM into Congress, keeping Pittsburgh's water public, Shell's planned petrochemical plant, visualizing air quality, the City of Pittsburgh's sustainability initiatives, fossil energy infrastructure, getting money out of politics, community solar power and the Solarize Allegheny program, the Paris climate negotiations (before, during, and after), air quality (again, with news on the autism connection), reuse (of things and substances), neighborhood-scale food systems, other forms of green community revitalization, solar power, climate change, environmental art, environmental education (Part I & Part II), community mapping projects, environmental journalism, grassroots action, Marcellus shale development and community rights, green building, air quality, health care, more solar power, trees and park stewardship, alternative energy and climate policy, regional watershed issues, fantastic film screenings and discussions (often led by filmmakers) over the winter with films on Food Systems, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Plastic Paradise, Rachel Carson and the Power Of One Voice, Triple Divide on fracking, You've Been Trumped and A Dangerous Game, A Fierce Green Fire, Sustainability Pioneers, films on consumption, Living Downstream, Bidder 70, YERT, Gas Rush Stories, and food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, and more food (a recurrent theme; with California running out of water, we'd better gear up to produce a lot more of our own!).
