Apr 23: Sustainability Salon on Food (Part I)

Spring onions (Egyptian walking onions) are lush at this time of year...  let me know if you'd like some!  I have lots to spare!  

Spring has sprung!  The 135th Sustainability Salon will return to our annual two-month springtime focus on Food.  We'll meet on Zoom from 4 p.m. to 7 or so on Sunday, April 23rd.  

Topics will include (check back here, as more are added):

Helen Gerhardt will discuss how our current Home Rule Charter grants outsized powers to the Allegheny County Executive within the structures of local, regional, and even Commonwealth government - and how we might support checks and balances on those powers that so greatly impact food sovereignty, as well as environmental justice, health, housing, transit, development, justice systems, incarceration, and many other critical human needs in our communities.

At the city level, Pittsburgh City Council member Deborah Gross will share her City Farms program, including community agroforestry, the new Pittsburgh's new Food Justice Fund, and composting pilot programs (like the new SoilMill PGH) that are in the works. 

Chef Carlos A. Thomas is founder of Feed The Hood, which aims to expand the culinary workforce through training, mentorship, and real world experience -- and build community as well as a healthy food environment.  He's also running for Allegheny County Council this year.  

And the U.S. is closing in on another iteration of the quinquennial* Farm Bill -- it is is now being negotiated, and will be voted on in September.  This multivolume package of federal legislation has the potential to be an important part of the solution to mitigate climate change, regenerate biodiversity loss, restore clean water, increase access to nutrient-dense food, improve human health, build local economies, and limit excessive corporate control.  Or not.  Join us to learn more from Phyllis Rubin, who farms in eastern PA (at Two Gander Farm) and co-founded the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance of Pennsylvania.  By the way, you can use your voice to advocate for more-sustainable practices being supported at this link. 

* quinquennial means every five years.  

On May 21st, we hope to gather in person!  A great roster of speakers is assembling for the second Food salon -- here's the link!  In the meantime, some other items of note (followed by salon logistics).  Many of these are food-related...

•  March 23-June 8:   Doug Oster is doing another series of online organic gardening classes, under the auspices of Farm To Table PA.  You can watch videos of past classes and register for upcoming sessions, here.

•  April 8:  There is a lot to unpack on environmental justice in Allegheny County.  Join 412 Justice and Grow Pittsburgh for an Allegheny County Executive Candidate Forum on Environmental Justice.  More information and registration here.  Also streaming on FB here.  

•  April 12:  Last month we heard from PA State Rep Sara Innamorato about the bipartisan Whole Home Repair Act passed last year.  Wouldn't it be great to have her energy and compassion in the Allegheny County Executive's office?  Join other engaged citizens to hear from Sara at a fundraiser to help get her there!  Or get involved with the campaign here!

•  April 19-22:  Grow Pittsburgh and Allegheny County Conservation District will host a Free Soil Lead Screening for county residents.  More info and registration here.

•  April 21:   Online panel on The Role of Trauma, Trust, & Community in Food Insecurity.  1 p.m. online.  More info and registration here.

•  April 21:    Join a student-led coalition of Pittsburgh colleges for an Earth Day Climate Party, to demand that our elected officials take action on the climate crisis:  2 p.m. at the City-County Building (414 Grant St. downtown).

•  April 15, 16, 22, 23:  Combine a forest stewardship activity with the creation of grapevine spheres, in honor of Earth Day.  More info and registration here.

•  April 24:  Are animals necessary for a healthy, resilient, and conscientious food system?  Free virtual film screening -- with a discussion to follow at 5 p.m. on Monday.  More info and registration here. 

•  April 27:  Concerned about a toxic train derailment here in Pittsburgh?  Join a resident-led Air Quality Town Hall about what that would mean.  More info and registration here.

•  April 29:  A new grocery store for Homewood?  Freedom Foods is holding a community meeting and membership drive (1-4 p.m. at the Carnegie Library of Homewood (7101 Hamilton Ave).    

•  May 9:  So many resources been spent trying to cure cancer.  But as the old saying tells us, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Journalist Kristina Marusic has a new book out, The New War On Cancer.  Launch event 7p.m. at the White Whale Bookstore.  

•  May 11:  Solarpunk Future:  part job fair, part interactive art show.   More information and registration here.

•  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!

•  Clean Air Council has set up a directed donation fund to help residents affected by the train derailment just over the Ohio border in East Palestine.  You can contribute here to help fund needed resources for residents of easternmost Ohio and westernmost Pennsylvania.  

•  Closer to home, 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!).

•  And speaking of solidarity, the Cop City controversy is still raging in Atlanta.  More information and a support fund are here.  There's also talk of a similar facility in the works for Pittsburgh... 

•  PRC continues to hold online workshops about composting, rainwater harvesting, and waste reduction.  

•  The Rachel Carson EcoVillage is still looking for a few more members, so they can start construction!  Curious?  Check out this introductory video -- or even better, sign up for an introduction session or sign up as an “inquirer” to have more information sent to you.

•  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 (or you can still order online).

Talks and discussion will run from 4 p.m. to 7 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.  Talks and corresponding Q&A will finish by 7 or 7:30, but informal discussion often continues after that -- join us for whatever time works for you!  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 (and often health, and justice, and politics);  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, and (when in person) delectable potluck food and drink and music-making through the evening.   Originally a potluck mini-conference, the event has been mostly on Zoom since March 2020, except for some outdoor summer salons.  

Past topics have included 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, 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!).