Dec 11: Sustainability Salon on Consumption and the Rise of Plastic


The 119th Sustainability Salon will be our annual early-December feature on 
Consumption (in part so that folks might sally forth into the holiday season and, I hope, buy less stuff).   

Laura Lovett is an associate professor of history at Pitt who studies race, sex, gender, and the environment.  Her course "The Age of Plastic: Modern Consumption and the Environment in the United States" explores the rise of mass consumption in the post-war era -- how we moved within a single generation to embrace a single-use plastic lifestyle -- and its implications for our environment and waterways.  Join us to see how American consumerism came to be.

We'll also feature several local businesses that can help you get off the plastics/single-use train, including:
•  Our Children Our Earth is a local purveyor of alternatives to disposables (as well as non-plastic toys and games).  They'll be having another Open House (and serving as a Play It Forward donation site for gently used toys & games) this Sunday and Monday, December 12 & 13.
•  Sol Refill will soon be delivering home, body, and pantry staples to Pittsburghers -- and recirculating the receptacles!  
•  The Refillery is a new store in Squirrel Hill, with home and body products you can take home in your own containers.  

And folks from Pittsburghers Against Single-Use Plastic (PASUP) will share a bit of what we've been doing during the pandemic,  thoughts on the intersection of consumption and happiness, and a few ways that you can reduce your plastic footprint this season and every season.

Upcoming salons:  January's topic is TBA, but in February we'll continue our virtual walk through the woods -- Part 2 of our Urban Forest series -- with Forest Restoration.  


In the meantime, a few other items of note:
•  December 15:  The Group Against Smog & Pollution (GASP, featured in last month's salon) is planning another event in our Making the Connections series:  The Alarming Link Between Pollution & Mental Illness.  Register here.
• Mask update:  Breathe99 masks (featured at November's 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.  
•  We cover a lot of important topics at Sustainability Salons.  If you're looking to get involved in any of them, feel free to connect with me (email with "salon" in the Subject is always a good method) and I can probably find a good match!  I also often post job opportunities on the Resources side of MarensList.  

Talks and discussion will run from 4 p.m. to 7:30 or so on Zoom (sadly, no potluck supper these days).  You're welcome to join the call for informal conversation after 3 p.m., and we aim to start the main program right around 4.  If you're new to Zoom, you may find my Zoom Reference Guide helpful.  If you RSVP via Eventbrite, you'll receive the Zoom registration link right away.  If you're not already on my Eventbrite 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!

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;  it's a house party (if there weren't a pandemic) with an environmental theme.  Each month we have featured speakers on various aspects of a particular topic, interspersed with stimulating conversation, lively debate, delectable potluck food and drink, and music-making through the evening (though the potluck and the music are on hiatus during the pandemic, so you're on your own for the delectables).
Past topics have included regional air qualitypreserving Pittsburgh's forests, climate modelingapproaches to pipelinespipeline hazardsthe legacy of the Fukushima nuclear disasterthe judiciary and fair electionsconsumptionpandemics and air,  election law and activismair quality and environmental justicesocial investment,  local economies, the economics of energymutual aid networksocean healththe rise of the radical rightthe back end of consumptionapproaches to activism on fracking & climateair quality, technology, and citizen sciencesingle-use plasticselection activismelection law, whether to preserve existing nuclear power plantsadvanced nuclear technologiespassenger and freight trainsconsumption, plastics, and pollutionair qualitysolar poweryouth activismgreening businessgreenwashing, the petrochemical buildout in our region, climate/nature/peoplefracking, health, & actionglobalizationecological ethicscommunity inclusionair quality monitoringinformal gatherings that turn out to have lots of speakersgetting STEM into Congresskeeping Pittsburgh's water publicShell's planned petrochemical plantvisualizing air quality, the City of Pittsburgh's sustainability initiativesfossil energy infrastructure, getting money out of politicscommunity solar power and the Solarize Allegheny program, the Paris climate negotiations (beforeduring, 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 revitalizationsolar powerclimate changeenvironmental art, environmental education (Part I & Part II), community mapping projectsenvironmental journalismgrassroots actionMarcellus shale development and community rightsgreen buildingair qualityhealth care, more solar powertrees and park stewardshipalternative energy and climate policyregional watershed issues, fantastic film screenings and discussions (often led by filmmakers) over the winter with films on Food SystemsClimate Adaptation and MitigationPlastic Paradise, Rachel Carson and the Power Of One VoiceTriple Divide on fracking, You've Been Trumped and A Dangerous GameA Fierce Green FireSustainability Pioneersfilms on consumptionLiving DownstreamBidder 70YERTGas Rush Stories, and foodfood, food, foodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodand more food (a recurrent theme;  with California running out of water, we'd better gear up to produce a lot more of our own!).

Coronavirus update:   As you know, people in Pittsburgh and around the world are sequestered at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Social distancing is still the rule for most Americans.  That's a bit of a misnomer, though -- we need physical distancing to flatten the curve, but technology now allows for rich interactions even so!  I believe that community is one of our greatest strengths, so in March as events began to be cancelled, I hosted the first virtual Sustainability Salon via Zoom teleconference -- rather than gathering our usual 50-80 people in a contained space.   It went quite well (even engaging participants from hundreds of miles away), and we're looking forward to June's salon!  Please be sure to RSVP (via email with "salon" in the Subject: line, or via Eventbrite) so you'll receive the sign-on information.  

And if you like to make music or listen to homemade music, think back to our evening sings -- we typically ran the gamut from Irish fiddle tunes to protest songs to the Beatles, and a fun time was had by all.  Folks would bring instruments, and/or pick up one of ours.  Conversations would continue through the evening, as well.  With a virtual event this is less likely to happen, but we can share music by turns, reminisce, chat online, and look forward to the post-COVID era!

Dec 8: Preparing for Petrochemicals

The ethane cracker plant just up in Beaver County is slated to crank up in the coming months, turning fracked ethane into plastic.  Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community (BCMAC) is hosting an online briefing for the public with experts on health impacts, emergency response, air monitoring, and firsthand experiences from similar facilities in Texas.  Register here