Putting Down Roots: Maren's List

Mar 22: Sustainability Salon on Data Centers (Part II)

Is this our future?

(cropped from Cbrasil0, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Artificial intelligence is increasingly present in our lives. Churning out ready-made essays, misleading "journalism", ersatz images, and deepfake videos while analyzing our personal data from shopping habits to physical appearance, it seeks to replace human creativity and effort in many realms, and there are issues with both accuracy and ethics. And beyond all that, to run it requires vast data centers, which are popping up all over the globe -- especially where there is energy and water to be had -- with little apparent consideration given to the environmental, health, economic, and climate impacts of the data centers and upstream suppliers, from semiconductors to methane. Fossil energy companies are seeing a bonanza, as industry demand for their products ramps up, while families are seeing energy bills soar and jobs vanish.

Four months ago, we took stock of the ongoing expansion of data centers in our region and discussed efforts to resist this development. We examined the economic impacts of the industry, and also learned about Loudoun County, Virginia, which has been overrun with data centers. For the 170th Sustainability Salon, we'll cross the wide Atlantic to talk with Rosi Leonard, who leads the Data Centres Team for Friends of the Earth Ireland. There, a global data centre hub has been growing for decades and the country's ambitious climate goals are being undone (sound familiar, Pittsburgh?).

We'll also have an update on the local situation, with Charolette Baierl of the Climate Reality Project.

In April (probably the 12th), we'll contemplate the End of Waste: utilizing organic material (previously considered "waste") to generate soil, fertilizer, and energy.

Please check out the list below for other important events happening in our region (and online).

This salon will be both in-person and on Zoom. The program (and Zoom access) will start around 3 p.m. -- in-person folks will be able to enjoy snacks and drinks, as well as a potluck supper after the talks. We'll have the talks inside (it'll be a bit too chilly to sit for hours in the shade out back), but food and drink outside (I still try to make salons a safe environment for medically-vulnerable people). 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/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.

Note that starting last month, I shifted salons an hour EARLIER, at least for this fall and winter, and maybe beyond --the program will start around 3 p.m. Eastern. Why? During our sabbatical in Ireland this last year, I connected with many new friends and enviro-colleagues, some of whom have or will speak at salons, and others who are interested in attending. And there's generally a five-hour time difference (sometimes 4 or 6 hours because our savings-time shifts are on different dates). Also, logistics have evolved with in-person salons since 2021, so earlier should also work better here at our Pittsburgh site.

Other events and whatnot (times are U.S. Eastern):

• Mar 19: Webinar on Commenting, Public Meetings, and Information Requests -- part of a monthly series by Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services. 12-1:30 p.m.; more info and registration here.

• Mar 22: Sustainability Salon on Data Centers (Part II).

• Mar 28: The third national No Kings protests -- there will surely be events in and around Pittsburgh. More info on the nationwide events here, and if you're local, connect up with the newsletters mentioned two items down.

• Apr 12: Sustainability Salon on The End of Waste.

• Apr 20: Webinar on Policy, Legal, and Organizing Levers -- part of a monthly series by part of a monthly series by Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services. 12-1:30 p.m.; more info and registration here.

• Apr 25: Join the Sierra Club Allegheny Group and the Hazelwood Urban Ag Team for an Earth Day celebration with music, art, and action for the Earth. Blair Street Park in Hazelwood; more information to come!

• 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 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.

• 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 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!).

Feb 22: Sustainability Salon on ...Everything

Photo by Brotin Biswas, via pexels.com

From the EPA's recent repeal of the Endangerment Finding to killings and kidnappings around the country (and around the world), to the impending loss of Pittsburgh's paper of record, there's a whole lot going on. As it happens, we're overdue for our annual No Topic salon -- when I don't have to interrupt the conversations for the presentations; last year's sprouted not one but two topics and speakers! So for the 169th Sustainability Salon, let's take a breather and talk about what's going on, and what we can do about it, and anything else on our minds -- but without official speakers this month.

The next salon, Data Centres (Part II), will take place on March 22nd. And we'll explore The End of Waste on April 12th. As always, you can find the latest here on MarensList.

This salon will probably take place on Zoom (but I might be open to input on that, this time around -- email me).

Our session will start around 3 p.m., and usually goes 'till 6 or 7 but with no formal program it may be shorter or longer. 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/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 U.S. Eastern):

• Every day! Join volunteers with Indivisible's "Outrage Hour" Every day from 4 to 5 p.m. at Fifth & Shady. More info and RSVP here (but feel free to come whether or not you RSVP).

• Feb 5, 12, 19, & 26: Another round of attorney Tom Bailey's Zoom class on Pennsylvania's Environmental Rights Amendment. More information (and future offerings of the course) here.

• Feb 19: Permits & Zoning webinar -- part of a monthly series by Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services. 12-1:30 p.m.; more info and registration here.

• Feb 21: 28th annual Pittsburgh Racial Justice Summit creates opportunities to learn, connect, and act on behalf of racial justice. This year's theme: Building Community for Lasting Democracy and Racial Equity.9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the CCAC Allegheny campus. Sliding scale registration; more information and registration here.

• Mar 22: Sustainability Salon on Data Centers (Part II).

• 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.

Past topics have included speaking truth to power, greener buying, data centers, 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!).