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| Photo from Pixabay via Pexels.com |
To open our 12th year of salons, we'll start a short series inspired by some new legislation that will enable major environmental improvements, on a human scale. The 133rd Sustainability Salon on Sunday, February 26th (4 p.m. to 7 or so), will look at Energy (on March 26th, we'll be talking about Plastics).
As we know, in order to reduce the effects of climate change in the years (and centuries) ahead, humanity needs to escape our dependence on fossil fuels. We need to reduce our energy use (through conservation and energy efficiency), and we need to shift away from fossil carbon for the energy that we do use (electrification, combined with a move to renewables on the grid and in distributed installations). Since most air pollution comes from fossil fuel combustion, that'll mean better air quality, indoors and out! And although a great deal needs to happen in industry and public infrastructure, there are plenty of things that individuals can do to make this energy transition, and last year's passage of the federal Inflation Reduction Act and the state Whole-Home Repair legislation can help make the up-front costs more affordable.
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| IR image from a home energy audit; photo courtesy of Rhett Major |
It also relates to the budgets of everyday people. Energy prices have risen sharply over the past year, hitting many households hard -- so it's even more important for low-income folks (both owners and renters) to have efficient homes to reduce their "energy burden" (known internationally as "fuel poverty"). Drafty doors, single-pane windows, and walls and attics lacking insulation all contribute to big bills and difficult living conditions -- but not everybody can afford the necessary renovations. State Representative Sara Innamorato, who proposed and pushed through the Whole-Home Repair program to address these concerns, will join us to talk about this statewide legislation -- which will enable low- and moderate-income homeowners and small landlords to make repairs and updates to homes across Pennsylvania, and create jobs in the process.
We'll also talk about Action Housing's program providing free home weatherization services to low-income Pittsburghers.
Even the most efficient homes use some energy; the key to shifting away from fossil energy sources is electrification. Over 40% of our energy-related emissions stem from decisions that Americans make around our kitchen tables -- what kind of transportation we use, how we heat the air and water in our homes, how we cook our food and dry our clothes. The only way to eliminate these emissions is to have our households run on machines with plugs, not pipes -- devices like heat pumps in place of furnaces or boilers, and induction stoves in place of gas. Some of our neighbors have managed to complete that process, detaching their homes completely from gas lines! We'll have a brief panel with some of the local folks who have done this (Kirsi Jansa, Lou Reynolds, Mark Dixon, and Christine Benner Dixon), sharing their experience and fielding your questions.
So how to pay for all these modifications? It just became a little easier, especially for lower-income residents and those in environmental justice areas. The federal Inflation Reduction Act, passed just last summer, will release $369 billion for "Energy Security and Climate Change" -- rolling out rebates, tax incentives, and other programs to help households conserve energy and to electrify. What is in these programs, and how can you take advantage of them? Dr. Lucyna de Barbaro, another former CCI staffer (who resides in a super-efficient Passive House) will outline the actions households can take (some now, some later in the year when more regulations are finalized) to reduce our contribution to global warming and our long-term energy costs. The IRA has been called the single largest investment in American history -- you can be a part of this change!
Please check back here for updates and additions -- in the meantime, some other items of note:
Clean Air Council has set up a directed donation fund to help residents affected by the train derailment just over the Ohio boarder. You can contribute here.
• Feb 15: Allegheny County Council sustainability committee hearing on plastic pollution (live and on Teams).
• Feb 16: Learn about the powers of the Allegheny County Executive in this webinar hosted by the Pittsburgh Green New Deal discussion group. 6:30-8; register here.
• Feb 18: Allegheny County Democratic candidate forum. 1. p.m. in CMU's McConomy Auditorium (in the University Center).
• Feb 19: Zoom panel on moving from environmental racism to environmental justice (7 p.m.). More information and registration here.
• Feb 19-26: A series of events in support of Cop City resistance efforts in Atlanta. Details here.
• Feb 21: Wild Ones Western PA hosts a virtual workshop on Winter Sowing, a practice using old milk/cider jugs as tiny greenhouses for easy seed-starting (7:30-8:30 on Facebook Live).
• Feb 23: Green Drinks with GASP (6-8 p.m. at Mary's Vine in Rankin; FB event here.)
• Feb 23: Book Launch for Patricia DeMarco's In the Footsteps of Rachel Carson (6-8 p.m. at Chatham; details and RSVP info are provided in this Allegheny Front interview.
• Mar 26: Sustainability Salon on plastics legislation
• Forests are threatened nationwide. Wildfires, fossil energy and petrochemical projects, and other development projects. Three more petitions:
• Tell the Forest Service to do its job and protect our forests from further fragmentation by gas pipelines. This will likely lead you to another petition, encouraging the Army Corps of Engineers to deny permits for the same pipeline, the Mountain Valley, to cross waterways.
• Tell Atlanta to keep their promise to keep their biggest urban forest the centerpiece of their resilience plan, instead of a giant police and fire training facility (in the middle of a majority-Black community already dealing with environmental contamination as well as a long and troubled history with policing). More information at that site, and also in this article which looks at many different perspectives. Three Pittsburghers were arrested in the January 18th raid that also killed one other.
• Students at Shaler Area High School have partnered with the Allegheny Land Trust to protect open space in their community and enhance butterfly habitat with native plants. They've put together a fundraiser to help acquire a parcel of former farmland.
•. During the Climate Convergence in June, we placed a countdown Climate Clock in the Pennsylvania Capitol. We petitioned to make this installation permanent, and were largely successful!
