May 18: Sustainability Salon on Food (part II): Life on the land, and what's next

Kretschmann row crops (top); Jamison flock (bottom)

For the 160th Sustainability Salon, we'll return to our annual two-month focus on Food.  This time, we'll feature a pair of prominent local farms, both pioneers in the farm-to-table, regenerative agriculture world.  We'll talk with and learn from the farmers, who will reflect on decades of providing food to our region and beyond, what that has meant in the face of industrial agriculture and corporate food, relationship to and stewardship of land, and how to step back from a life of work on the land with an eye to the future.

More than half a century ago, Don Kretschmann and his wife Becky set out to raise produce organically, which was uncommon in the 1970s.  They eschewed synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides in favor of compost, crop rotation, and beneficial organisms.  At its peak, the 80-acre Kretschmann Family Organic Farm served 1300 CSA members in and around Pittsburgh, along with quite a few local restaurants.  Time marches on, however, and now the Kretschmanns have turned their orchard over to their daughter, whose specialty vinegars and sweet and hard ciders are popular at local farmers' markets.  The farm fields and facilities are partly in use by young and beginning farmers learning the ropes, and partly turned over to alfalfa to leave the soil fertile and alive for the next main farmer of this land, yet to be found.  

John and Sukey Jamison came to farming almost inadvertently.  They found a wonderful old house to live in and restore, which happened to come with a big parcel of beautiful land.  Sukey and their kids took on a few sheep as a 4-H project -- and then circumstances (and the fabulous grass on their farm), led them into a growing retail business through which their grass-fed lamb -- often called the best in the country -- drew the attention of top chefs from Manhattan to DC to Berkeley.  Now they, too, have transitioned from retail into retirement -- but they have four decades worth of lessons learned and stories to share from Jamison Farm.  Their book Coyotes in the Pasture & Wolves at the Door is full of these experiences (as well as Sukey's amazing recipes).  Join us for a conversation that is sure to be full of wit, wisdom, and joy!

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.  You can join the Zoom starting at 3 if you'd like to chat , and the talks and discussion usually wind down sometime around 7 or so; 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 (times are EDT):

•  Apr 17:  Beaver County:  Our Future, Our Environment.  5:30-8:30 p.m. in Monaca. More info and registration here.

•  Apr 18:  Webinar on Data Centers, Climate, and Labor.  6 p.m.;  more info and zoom registration here.

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

•  Apr 30:  Environmental filmmaker Mark Dixon will talk about his air quality advocacy work and screening new clips from his long-awaited documentary Inversion: The Unfinished Business of Pittsburgh's Air at the Documentary Salon.  6:30 p.m. at WQED in Oakland;  more info here.

•  May 10: Join InvolveMINT for a short walking tour visiting local partners who are powering a regenerative, community-based economy.  Showcasing a SolarPunk vision in practice, where compost becomes soil, soil grows food, and food fuels a new ecosystem of exchange.  1-3 p.m., starting at Hazel Grove Brewing. RSVP or donate here. 

•  May 15:  Permaculture in Practice: Regenerating Western Pennsylvania (fundraiser for the Permaculture Institute of North America).  5:30-9 p.m. at Tree Pittsburgh. Tickets and more info here. 

•  May 18:  Sustainability Salon on Food (part II).  4-7 p.m., on Zoom.

•  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 and registration here.

•  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 27:  Preview screening of Inversion: The Unfinished Business of Pittsburgh's Air, with filmmaker Mark Dixon.  Online -- more info and registration here.

•  May 28:  ACLU-PA webinar on LGBTQ Rights.  More info and registration here.

•  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.

•  June 23-28:  Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice:  COP30 and Beyond.  More information and registration here. 

•  Again, I encourage local 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.  

•  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 film Single-Use Planet (hopefully soon to appear on PBS), or The Story of Plastic, or the PBS docs Plastic Wars, Fenceline, and We're All Plastic People Now?  (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 food justice, 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!).

 

Plastic People