Aug 27: Sustainability Salon on Hopeful Visions

Susan Kaye Quinn's Nothing is Promised series of hopepunk novels

Making this the inaugural Summer Author Series (following on our great discussion with Kristina Marusic last month) -- and ending the summer on a positive note -- we will welcome Susan Kaye Quinn, environmental engineer turned writer of speculative fiction, solarpunk, and hopepunk climate fiction; astronomer, author, mentor, organizer, and dark-sky advocate Diane Turnshek; and author and publisher Scot Noel for a conversation about hopeful visions for the future.

Weather permitting, we'll continue our summertime break from online-only salons.  The 139th Sustainability Salon may again be hybrid, with an in-person (mostly-outdoor) gathering plus a Zoom option for faraway folks or those otherwise unable to attend in person.  If you're interested in the Zoom option for the presentation & discussion portion of this salon, please email me (with "salon" in the Subject line, as always)

What is hope, anyway?  Hope is a Plant You Can Care For or Kill.  Hope is often derided as Pollyanna-ish, or a not-serious emotion, but in fact, it’s a deeply human tool that we use to persevere, to imagine harder, and to work for a better world.  With the climate crisis constantly pounding the world with disasters, record numbers of people are concerned about the climate -- but they often quickly get stuck in despair, which leads to inaction.  Stories are how we understand the world, and a shift to positive narratives about the struggle for a just, sustainable world can act as a balm and inspiration for action.  Susan Kaye Quinn will talk about the role positive stories play in the fight for a better world.  She’ll discuss the ten elements of hopepunk, how activists are increasingly focused on solutions-based narratives, and how efforts to get climate stories on the screen could change how we talk about the crisis. She’ll share her works as well as other stories that can restore, inspire, and help grow the hope we need to work together in this fight.

Diane Turnshek has been involved with speculative fiction for decades, founding the Alpha teen writing workshop, Write or Die, a writers' mutual critique group, and the Triangulation anthology series, which often explores environmental themes.  She has taught at area institutions including CMU, Pitt, Chatham, Seton Hill, and St. Vincent College in subjects from astronomy to writing, and is Executive Director of Parsec, Pittsburgh's premier science fiction organization.  She is a strong advocate for dark skies (controlling artificial lights at night), for myriad reasons related to energy use, astronomical observations, and biology.  A committed environmentalist, Diane lives in a tiny house (500 square feet, and very green) in Pittsburgh.   She will offer insights about how cities can be made greener, healthier, and more sustainable through better (and more biophilic) urban planning and design.   (photo by Karen Yun-Lutz)

Also joining us will be Scot Noel, founder and publisher of DreamForge: a magazine of fiction and commentary that embody humane values of compassion, cooperation, creativity, integrity, and hope (as well as an award-winning author of science fiction and fantasy himself).  He's a major proponent of, and frequent speaker on, solarpunk and hopepunk literature.

This in-person gathering will go from 3 p.m. to 8 or 9.  Presentations and discussion will start around 4 p.m. Please be sure to RSVP if you might come!   And with the weather a bit uncertain, please keep an eye out on MarensList and/or email as the weekend approaches.  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!  Likewise, email if you are interested in a Zoom option for this salon!  To RSVP, respond via Eventbrite or simply email me with "salon" in the Subject line.  Along about Saturday  night/Sunday morning, I'll send out Directions & Other Information to all who have registered (but please register even if you know your way here).

The next salon will almost certainly be on September 24th.  In the meantime, some other items of interest:

•  Aug 23:  Better Path Coalition presents CIEL's Jane Patton on hydrogen science and policy -- as the DOE is set to announce hydrogen hubs.  Webinar at 7pm;  register here (a little more information on FB here). 

•  Aug 26:  Buy Fresh Buy Local is starting up a new webinar series with local gardening luminary Doug Oster.  Thursdays at 5 p.m.;  more info and registration are here (along with videos of past sessions).  

•  Aug 26:  Art build!  For the Pennsylvania Climate Convergence just over a month from now, people around Pennsylvania are creating a community quilt to display, to march with, and to remind our government in Harrisburg that we are watching them.  C'mon over and embellish your own square(s)!  Email Maren (see above) to participate.

•  Aug 27:  Gathering, march, festival, teach-in, and resource-sharing for bodily autonomy and reproductive justice (Homestead, 1 p.m.) -- flyer is here;  more info and registration are here.  

•  Aug 29:  The Allegheny County Council will be deciding whether to create a Climate Action Plan for the county.  Please attend their meeting (5 p.m. in the Gold Room on the 4th floor of the County Courthouse, 436 Grant St.), to demonstrate how much local residents care about climate!  If you'd like to speak, please fill out this form.  

•  Sept 15:  Local/global climate march/rally by Fridays for Future.

•  Sept 17:  March to End Fossil Fuels in NYC, in conjunction with Climate Week.  

•  Sept 23:  Save the date for Pittsburgh's annual Urban Farm Tour!  Keep an eye on this page for more information. 

•  Sept 24:  Reuse Reunion -- join the Pgh Center for Creative Reuse for an afternoon of art-making and supply-swapping and art-making (12-4 in Westinghouse Park).  More info on their events page.

•  Sept 24:  Sustainability Salon #140!

•  Oct 1-2:  The second Pennsylvania Climate Convergence in Harrisburg.  Virtual opening event with Bill McKibben on Sept 30th.

•  Oct 10:  Air Quality Town Hall on the results of the ACHD's consent agreement with US Steel over Clairton Cokeworks violations -- where has the money gone?  More info and registration here.

•  PA is considering legislation to (a) greatly increase the renewables portion of our electricity generation, and (b) enable community solar!!  The Pennsylvania Solar Center has made it easy to speak out to support this action! 

•  This spring we learned a great deal about agriculture and the Farm Bill.  You can use your voice to advocate for more-sustainable practices being supported at this link. 

•  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!).  This strike has garnered national attention;  one recent picket even made it into Teen Vogue.

•  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.

•  Another forest that needs protecting is Sherwood Forest, in Mason Co., WA -- at risk of clear-cutting by a company headquartered here in Pittsburgh.  You can learn more (and donate to the legal fund if you can) here. 

•  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 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 (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 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, 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!).