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?" With 2023 in the books as the
hottest year on record -- the world is changing, folks! -- we'll continue our Movement-Building series with a focus on
water campaigns. This will be a great opportunity to get a handle on all the important work being done to protect our region's waterways.
(We'll be on Zoom; with covid numbers high again, we just don't want 50-100 people in our living room.)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
145th Sustainability Salon (kicking off our 13th year of salons!), we'll continue our exploration of these ideas, as we figure out how to use our passion to create long-term campaigns. In October, longtime activist and skilled movement trainers
Penn Garvin and Kidest Gebre 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 helping to
protect water quality that are active in our region. We'll brainstorm ways to improve these campaigns, 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. Two previous salons in this series focused on
Air and
Climate campaigns.
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.
Heather Hulton VanTassel is the executive director of
Three Rivers Waterkeeper, which monitors and protects the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio using science and the law.
Tom Pike, environmental policy advocate at
ProtectPT, will share their work protecting water quality from fracking and related operations in Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties.
Hilary Flint is Director of Communications and Community Engagement for Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community (BCMAC), and Vice President of Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment. As a cancer survivor and affected resident, she’s determined to protect others from corporate greed and the health harms generated by the buildout of petrochemical plastics manufacturing.
Gabriel Gray is
Pittsburgh United's lead organizer for the Our Water campaign, which aims to keep our region's water supply both clean and affordable -- we need accessibility and equity, as well as pollution prevention! We talked about this campaign in 2017's
salon on Pittsburgh's Water Future; Gabby will bring us up to date on the campaign, which is expanding into schools and across the region.
Patrick Shirey is a fisheries ecologist involved in policy, an assistant professor in Geology and Environmental Sciences at Pitt, and associate director of
The Water Collaboratory, which works at the intersection of water research, governance, and action.
Robin Martin Lesko, organizer at
Food & Water Watch, led a successful canvassing campaign to protect Allegheny County parks from fracking.
Check back here for updates!
The next Sustainability Salon will very likely launch our regular spring series on Food.
There are also a whole lot of other important events happening in our region; check out the list below!
With winter here, 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:
• Feb 9: Collective Knowledge Building Workshop on Air Quality & Community Health (2:30-4:30 p.m. at General Sisters, 1140 Kirkpatrick Ave. in North Braddock).
• Feb 15: The Black Appalachian Coalition and the Ohio River Valley Institute are partnering with Patricia DeMarco, PhD for a Petrochemical Lunch & Learn series, delving deep into the connection between environmental pollution and our health. Register here.
• Feb 17: Join the Pittsburgh Branch of DarkSky International and other local folks who care about light pollution in Pittsburgh to socialize and share stories, enjoy light refreshments, and tour the Allegheny Observatory! Registration requested (and note that if there's inclement weather, it'll shift to Zoom).
• Feb 22: Join national and local Green New Deal networks, congressmember Summer Lee, and other voices for a community event and rally calling on President Biden and our Pennsylvania state government to make bigger and bolder investments that keep our communities safe and healthy (vs. more spending on waging war). 2-3 p.m. in Schenley Plaza -- more information and registration here.
• Mar 2: Poor People's Campaign Mass Mobilization in Harrisburg -- more information and registration here. There will be a bus from Pittsburgh!
• Mar 9: Want to know more about the trees in your neighborhood, and have the opportunity to help care for them? Become a Tree Tender! Tree Pittsburgh and Upstream Pgh are holding a training in Wilkinsburg -- more info and registration here.
• Mar 18: Speaking of movements... a seminar on the History of Deep Reform in the US and Its Lessons for Today's Social Movements -- 4:30-7 in 3702 Posvar Hall (230 S Bouquet St., at Pitt).
• ReImagine Food Systems, which we've talked about at past salons, is raising funds for this year's operations (food gardens and hands-on education offered at no cost to residents in environmental justice communities, by volunteers). If you have something to spare, you can contribute via GoFundMe.
• 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!
• 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 climate campaigns, consumerism, air quality campaigns, 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!).
