Last month's Sustainability Salon was a bit of a departure from the norm, exploring nature in our back yard. This month, even more so: there will be no program at all, just an informal gathering to celebrate
150 salons! The pandemic did us out of a party for our 100th (#98 was the day after the shutdown, and was the first Zoom salon), and our 10-year mark (it was in the winter, so was on Zoom).
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| The first salon, on home solar |
As we reflect on twelve and a half years of salons, there will be an opportunity to share those reflections. Others in our community have taken notice of Sustainability Salons, and we'll be among the civic catalysts featured in Pittsburgh Media Partnership's Newsapalooza this September.
Kathy Knauer is executive producer of
The Allegheny Front, our region's highly-regarded environmental radio show (which can be heard on WESA/90.5 and quite a few other stations in western PA and even upstate NY, on TAF's web site, or as a podcast -- all the options are
here). She'll be here to hear from salongoers who'd like to share their thoughts -- about impacts, insights, and connections made at salons through the years.
Weather permitting (hoping for no rain and also no heat dome!), for the 150th Sustainability Salon we'll visit and talk, enjoy potluck food and drink, and maybe make some music (and probably also further explore our place and its biodiversity). We'll place a laptop wherever seems most advantageous to Zoom participants.
The next Sustainability Salon will be on Sunday, August 11th.
There are also a whole lot of other important events happening in our region; please check out the list below for a few of 'em.
If the weather cooperates and we're in person, folks can arrive starting at 3 p.m. But we'll have to see how the forecast develops for that day -- we'll either be in-person and mostly outdoors (hybrid -- also accessible via Zoom), or just on Zoom, depending on the weather! 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 salon email 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 (still working on changing my platform), 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:
• July 6: The Battle of Homestead Foundation commemorates this pivotal 1892 event. 2-5 p.m. at the historic Homestead Works Pump House (880 E Waterfront Drive, Munhall). More info here.
• July 10: Allegheny Land Trust presents Nature Nearby: Birding in Your Backyard. 6 p.m. at Carnegie Library (Squirrel Hill branch).
• July 12: Whirlwinds of Danger -- ever see the folks at protests sporting dayglo green caps? They are volunteer observers for the National Lawyer's Guild, which also provides phone support in case things go awry. Consider attending this fundraiser for the Pittsburgh chapter of NLG! (7 p.m. at Spirit, in Lawrenceville)
• July 24: Strategy session of the Environmental Justice Coalition, organizing to improve and advocate for the Allegheny County Climate Action Plan -- making it more transparent, inclusive, accountable, and effective. 6-8 p.m. on Zoom; more information and registration here.
• July 30: Protect Our Parks anniversary picnic, celebrating two years since the passage of the fracking ban for Allegheny County parks. 5-8 p.m. at South Park's Buffalo Inn. More information and registration here.
• Aug 10: East Side Environmental Justice Resource Fair will grow community capacity and provide community members with resources to educate and equip those most impacted with solutions to environmental injustice, often due to race and/or socioeconomic status. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. at the Homewood Brushton YMCA (7140 Bennett St.). Food, fun, and childcare provided!
• Sep 23 or 30: Pennsylvania Climate Convergence in Harrisburg. (here's last year's event)
• Sep 27: The Pittsburgh Media Partnership celebrates the Pittsburgh Story with Newsapalooza.
• 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. And we're always looking for more volunteers, too! Email reimaginefoodsystems@gmail.com.
• 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.
• PRC continues to hold online workshops about composting, rainwater harvesting, and waste reduction. They have several Hard-to-Recycle events each year; 2024's are listed here. For household chemicals, here's the link.
• 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 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 either on Zoom or outdoor/hybrid since March 2020.
Past topics have included a closer look at our quarter-acre, reducing single-use plastics, water campaigns, 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, 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!).
