Please join us on May 21st, via Zoom, for the 124th Sustainability Salon! We'll talk about stoking climate action, with more-sustainable events!
Climate change is becoming more and more evident around the world, from storms and floods to droughts and wildfires. The need for action is ever more urgent as time goes on -- if humanity had taken appropriate measures starting several decades ago, the transition could have been easy. Now there is really no time to lose!
Pennsylvania is particularly problematic -- more fracking each year, proliferating pipelines, and shortly a huge petrochemical plant producing plastic, much of which will wind up floating in the oceans or being burned. Pennsylvania remains among the heaviest fossil carbon emitters in the nation, and after a brief pandemic dip, our emissions are ticking up again. Sadly, the majority of PA lawmakers are not taking climate change seriously, and this June activists from across the Commonwealth will converge on Harrisburg to call them to account for their inaction. Saturday June 11th will be a festival day, drawing new folks into the movement with arts and education; Sunday's march will highlight some of the most culpable parts of the state government; and on Monday a day of action will bring these issues right to our public officials. Organizers Karen Feridun and Jim Highland will fill us in on the details of the Pennsylvania Climate Convergence, what we hope to gain, and opportunities to get involved.
Climate action comes in many forms. International agreements, national and state legislation, municipal plans. Science, engineering, and business innovation. Lifestyle changes, conscious and unconscious choices. Protest marches, petitions to policymakers, and direct action. And while we all want to walk the walk, in most cases we need to work with the tools at hand. Most cars still burn gas; most electricity still comes from fossil fuels. However, a creative local company has been expanding the toolbox to include more sustainable technologies for events. Walking the walk, as it were... the Climate Convergence, SolarFest, several Earth Day events last month, and many other events in our region will be powered by Zero Fossil, a Pittsburgh-based event specialist best known for solar-powered concerts and festivals. We'll learn about what they do, and how they do it!
In the meantime, a few other items of note:
• May 16: Pittsburghers Against Single-Use Plastic (PASUP), in collaboration with Break Free From Plastic, is hosting a series of three film screenings, continuing on Monday, May 16th with We The Guinea Pigs, a film exploring the effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
• May 18: The Better Path Coalition will host a talk by author and activist George Lakey, about how climate activists can deal with political polarization.
• May 19: A workshop for K-12 educators will focus on Shanti Gamper-Rabindran's book America's Energy Gamble: People, Economy, and Planet, and how to use it in the classroom. The workshop will be led by Tracy Wazenegger, a science and global issues educator, along with Dr. Gamper-Rabindran; Act 48 credits will be available. Register here.
May 24: The Environmental Health Project and Halt the Harm will host an expert-led discussion on the risks of exposure to PFAS substances during pregnancy. More information and registration link are here.
• June 11-13: Activists from all across Pennsylvania will gather in Harrisburg to call our government to task on climate change, fracking and pipeline hazards, and the necessary transition to a new clean energy economy. The Pennsylvania Climate Convergence will take place over three days -- a festival with arts, education, and tabling; a march and other actions around the city; and a day of direct action at the Capitol. Lots more information is on our web site -- and many opportunities to help shape the event!
• June 18th: Allegheny SolarFest returns! This time, at Mill 19 in Hazelwood.
•. June 25th: the next Sustainability Salon -- in-person, outdoor, no-topic.
• Did you see the film The Story of Plastic, or the PBS doc Plastic Wars? (and/or join us for Plastic Paradise at a winter film salon six 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 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!
Past topics have included 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, 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!).
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!
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