Nov 12: Sustainability Salon on Movement-Building (Part II: Air (zoom))

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.  

•  The Rachel Carson EcoVillage is still looking for a few more members, so they can start construction!  Curious?  Check out this introductory video -- or even better, sign up for an introduction session or sign up as an “inquirer” to have more information sent to you.

•  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!  

•  Mask update:  Breathe99 masks (featured in a 2020 salon on Pandemics and Air (video), and one of TIME's 100 Best Inventions of 2020) are now being distributed by Our Children Our Earth, a local purveyor of alternatives to disposables (as well as classy wooden toys).  Contact Dianne via OCOE's Facebook page, or call (412) 772-1638 to coordinate a curbside pickup (or you can still order online).
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 campaignsabandoned oil and gas wellshope (finding it, creating it, using it), addressing environmental causes of cancera development proposal for Frick Park, single-use plastic legislationhome energy efficiency (and legislation to help fund improvements)the UN's COP process for climate negotiationsalternatives to single-use packaging, our region's air (part I and part II), activist art and America's Energy Gambleadvocacy opportunitiessocial justice gamesfixing Pennsylvania state governmentclimate actionforest restorationthe history of American consumerismregional air qualitypreserving Pittsburgh's forests, climate modelingapproaches to pipelinespipeline hazardsthe legacy of the Fukushima nuclear disasterthe judiciary and fair electionsconsumptionpandemics and air,  election law and activismair quality and environmental justicesocial investment,  local economies, the economics of energymutual aid networksocean healththe rise of the radical rightthe back end of consumptionapproaches to activism on fracking & climateair quality, technology, and citizen sciencesingle-use plasticselection activismelection law, whether to preserve existing nuclear power plantsadvanced nuclear technologiespassenger and freight trainsconsumption, plastics, and pollutionair qualitysolar poweryouth activismgreening businessgreenwashing, the petrochemical buildout in our region, climate/nature/peoplefracking, health, & actionglobalizationecological ethicscommunity inclusionair quality monitoringinformal gatherings that turn out to have lots of speakersgetting STEM into Congresskeeping Pittsburgh's water publicShell's planned petrochemical plantvisualizing air quality, the City of Pittsburgh's sustainability initiativesfossil energy infrastructure, getting money out of politicscommunity solar power and the Solarize Allegheny program, the Paris climate negotiations (beforeduring, 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 revitalizationsolar powerclimate changeenvironmental art, environmental education (Part I & Part II), community mapping projectsenvironmental journalismgrassroots actionMarcellus shale development and community rightsgreen buildingair qualityhealth care, more solar powertrees and park stewardshipalternative energy and climate policyregional watershed issues, fantastic film screenings and discussions (often led by filmmakers) over the winter with films on Food SystemsClimate Adaptation and MitigationPlastic Paradise, Rachel Carson and the Power Of One VoiceTriple Divide on fracking, You've Been Trumped and A Dangerous GameA Fierce Green FireSustainability Pioneersfilms on consumptionLiving DownstreamBidder 70YERTGas Rush Stories, and foodfoodfoodfoodfoodfood, food, foodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodand more food (a recurrent theme;  with California running out of water, we'd better gear up to produce a lot more of our own!).