This month, with the election so close (I don't want to draw anybody away from canvassing or the like), and me fresh back from months away, we'll have an informal gathering where we will discover together what happens when you start out with a very biodiverse habitat and let nature take its course for a whole summer. Please join me for wide-ranging conversation (there's certainly a lot to talk about!), with potluck food and drink (real or virtual depending on your location). We'll also have art materials for signmaking (say for the upcoming Starbucks greenwashing rally; see below). Additional topics or activities have a habit of springing up, in which case I'll add them to this event description on MarensList.
The next salon will take place on November 15th, and will feature a number of GASP projects and resources for our fall focus on Air Quality.
This salon will be hybrid, with in-person and Zoom options. In-person folks can arrive any time after 2:30 p.m. and I'll get the Zoom going for remote participants around 3 (EDT). As always, 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 or Sunday morning, I'll send it out again, with other information including directions, 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 U.S. Eastern):
• Oct 21:
Are you concerned about the proposed merger between Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific (both of which rank among the worst rail companies for safety)? Join
SPARC (Southwestern Pennsylvania Rail Communities) and Public Rail Now for a discussion of the merger, and infrastructure in our region.
7 p.m. via Zoom; more info and registration here. • Oct 22: A few months back (at the June salon) we looked at the Hot Strip Mill proposed for Braddock (and here's a fact sheet from GASP). This month, the Grassroots Resident-Led Town Hall on Environmental Injustice will focus on this issue for Town Hall #20. 7 p.m. via Zoom; more info and registration here
• Oct 28: Public hearing for the hyperscale data center proposed for Rachel Carson's hometown. 6 p.m. at the Springdale Borough Building; register here if you'd like to speak.
• Oct 30: Lunchtime webinar on enforcing environmental standards. Noon, via Zoom; more info and registration here.
• Oct 30: Rally and march to call out greenwashing by Starbucks, which claims that their drink cups are recyclable (but they're not being recycled). Starting at 2:30 p.m. at their 4022 Fifth Ave. location, ending around 4 at Forbes & Craig (both in Oakland). We'll have signs (and you can also make your own at the Oct 25th salon).
• Nov 7: Lichens are an important indicator of air quality, and are just generally fascinating! Join the Group Against Smog & Pollution and Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy for a Lichen Walk in Hays Woods. 1 p.m., $10. More info and registration here.
• To find ways to get active in our region, 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. There's also Fighting Back, by Alison, with up-to-date emails on lots and lots of protest actions and other events. Nobody can be everywhere, but all of us should be somewhere!
• And for valuable perspective on the day's news, consider following Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich, Rebecca Solnit, and/or Robert Hubbell. In our own region, folks like Patricia DeMarco, John Russell, and Susan Kaye Quinn are worth your time. Their work can be found variously in places like Substack, YouTube, BlueSky, Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook, and their own books, blogs, newsletters, and/or podcasts. This list is hardly comprehensive, but these links can connect you with some of our time's leading thinkers, writers, and speakers.
• 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 well over 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.
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 human migration, farm labor, closing the nutrient cycle, data centers (Part I & Part II), policy advocacy, greener buying, local environmental authors (Part I & Part II) honey forests & friends, air science into policy, air quality education and engagement, farming and succession, building with wood, 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!).
