March Sustainability Salon on Food (Part I, Access, Justice, and the Impact of the New Regime) Date TBA

Photo by Matheus Bertelli, via Pixels.

Spring has sprung! The 158th Sustainability Salon will return to our annual two-month focus on Food -- and also add a fourth entry to our ongoing series on TheYears Ahead.  This event will take place on Zoom.  

We are in a new world.  Turbulent political times, global climate disruption, American governmental disruption with global implications, pandemics (including some that affect the food supply), and artificial intelligence are among the many ways in which the ground has shifted beneath us.  This month, for the 158th Sustainability Salon, we'll continue our series on

Activism (and Life) in the Years Ahead         

...and will also begin our annual two-parter on Food, this time 

Food Access, Food Justice, and the Impacts of the New Regime

In this series, we've talked about how the political landscape has changed, and what that means for human rights, civil rights, the environment, jobs, retirement, health, healthcare, protesting, privacy, food and environmental justice, and just getting by.  We've considered how best to continue moving forward:  greater community connections, more policy efforts at the local level, and with greater care for safety along the way.  We've discussed COVID caution, community care, and disability rights, the Climate Action Plans in the works in our own region (and opportunities for input), learned about the structures that influence our strategies, and shared Mutual Aid networks in our city and beyond.  

Overlapping these two series, we'll talk about food access and food justice, food apartheid, the loss of government programs all along the food supply chain from farms to tables, and how we can build a stronger local and regional food system.  Speakers are in the works, and the date is TBA while we figure out what will work best.  

Check back here for updates!  The next Sustainability Salon will be related to Building with Wood, on April 13th.  In May we'll continue our regular spring two-parter on Food (again, date & speakers TBA).

There are also a whole lot of other important events happening in our region;  check out the list below!

This salon will be on Zoom, starting around 4 p.m. (you can join earlier if you'd like to chat -- I'll try to get on around 3), and usually winds down sometime around 7 or 8 -- 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, 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:

•  Mar 4:  "Why is My Electricity Bill So High?" Learn who controls energy prices in this webinar from PennFuture, Conservation Voters of PA, the Black Appalachian Coalition, Keystone Energy efficiency Alliance, Sierra Club PA, and 412Justice.  More information and registration here.

•  Mar 8:  Celebration of Seeds -- the 13th annual seed swap, workshops, and a raffle.  10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with Grow Pittsburgh and Phipps Conservatory at the Carnegie Library main branch (Oakland).  More information and registration (encouraged) here.

•  Mar 26:  Wild Ones symposium, Naturally Connected: Strengthening Communities by Reimagining our Role in Native Habitats.  5:30 at the Frick Environmental Center; $35; information on FB, tickets here. 

•  Mar 29:  Communitopia's Pittsburgh Youth Climate Action Summit. 10-4 at Museum Lab;  information and registration here.

•  Apr 13:  Sustainability Salon on building with wood, and related topics.    

•  Apr 28:  GASP and Allegheny Land Trust lead a springtime walk at Barking Slopes Conservation Area.  6-7:30 p.m.; $10.  Register here.

•  May 23-25:  The Heartwood Forest Council gathers forest-protection activists to share knowledge and provide support.  Keynote speaker will be Dr. Joan Maloof, author and founder of the Old-Growth Forest Network.  At Camp Crestfield in Slippery Rock.  More information here (registration page yet to come).

•  May 26:  Save the date for the third annual Back to Roots: Native Plant Fest.  Pique your curiosity about native plants and your local environment!  More information in this FB event.  11-3, free, Monroeville Community Park West.  

•  May 29:  The third annual Solarpunk Future -- a day of talks, workshops, tabling (organizations and vendors), art, fun, and hopeful visions for the future.  10-2 and 3-7 at the David Lawrence Convention Center.  More information here.

•  Again, I encourage folks to sign up for the Indivisible Grassroots Pittsburgh email list, which will bring you lots more listings, more frequently --email Debra.

•  Training and running AI models requires a lot of energy and water demand for power and cooling. Big tech companies are currently meeting data center resource demands with fossil fuel energy and huge water withdrawals—actions that clearly contradict their sustainability commitments.  Climate Action Now has a petition to pressure Meta to clean up their act.  

•  The US DOE is currently accepting comments on their recent report on the energy, economic, and environmental impacts of LNG exports.  The Better Path Coalition has made it easy for you to submit a comment -- go here to start!  

•  Energy Transfer is suing Greenpeace for $300M because they supported the Indigenous-led protests at Standing Rock (claiming that Greenpeace orchestrated the protests).  This is a classic SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), and itself worthy of protest.  Greenpeace has a petition you can sign.  

•  Liquid and solid waste from gas and oil extraction (much of which is radioactive) is currently being stored in a building (part of a former steel mill, which was never cleaned up properly in the first place) near the municipal drinking water source for thousands of people in Martins Ferry, Ohio.  The facility had a permit for 600 tons at a time, but held as much as 10,000 tons.  It is in the floodplain of the Ohio River, and waters rose up to the front doors this spring.  This petition, by Concerned Ohio River Residents, asks officials to halt waste processing there and keep it out of the Source Water Protection Area, clean up the site, and conduct environmental testing and monitoring.  This practice is insane;  we have to stop legitimizing dangerous extractive industries.  

•  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!  

•  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 two years 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; upcoming events are listed here.  For household chemicals, here's the link.

•  The Rachel Carson EcoVillage is still looking for a few more members.  Curious?  You can sign up for an introduction session or sign up as an “inquirer” to have more information sent to you.

•  Have you seen the recent film Single-Use Planet (hopefully soon to appear on PBS), or  The Story of Plastic, or the PBS docs Plastic Wars and Fenceline?  (and/or join us for Plastic Paradise at a winter film salon seven 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 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.   Beginning in early 2012, salons were originally a potluck mini-conference;  the event has been either on Zoom or outdoor/hybrid since March 2020.  This event series was featured in the Pittsburgh Media Partnership's Pittsburgh Story project on Civic Catalysts -- here's a piece by The Allegheny Front. 

Past topics have included Mutual Aid networks, activism in the coming years, COVID caution and community care, nature education/volunteer programs, air quality, stories that inspire, forest protection, a celebration of the 150th salon, 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!).