Sep 24: Sustainability Salon on Abandoned Wells (hybrid event)

Weather permitting, this will be a hybrid event.  Weather permitting, in this case, means that I will be checking the forecast and studying the radar quite extensively on Sunday, and will decide whether it'll be Hybrid or Zoom-Only fairly close to the event (when the radar becomes really relevant).  Thanks for your patience!  Everyone who has RSVP'd has the Zoom link, just in case.  UPDATE:  There's enough risk of rain (reaching us from the former Hurricane Ophelia) that we are resorting to a Zoom-only meeting.  Here's the Zoom registration link.

It's been over a century and a half since the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, PA.  In that time, the oil & gas industry has left behind hundreds of thousands of old wells -- most abandoned and unplugged.  Some are still leaking (either directly or through other wells and mines, sometimes caused by newer drilling) and polluting the air, water, and soil, exacerbating climate change, and occasionally destroying homes in fiery explosions of fossil methane.   Once again, extractive industries have worked hard to internalize profits and externalize costs.  For the 140th Sustainability Salon, we'll take a closer look!

Photos courtesy of Save Our Streams PA

Laurie Barr, citizen scientist and activist, co-founded Save Our Streams PA.  She has been hunting abandoned and orphanded gas & oil wells for more than a decade.  Laurie will fill us in on the history of this problem and how extraction from the Marcellus shale has exacerbated it, share the challenges of finding and documenting "lost" wells across Pennsylvania and in our region, and discuss the prospects for properly plugging the worst wells.  

Kelsey Krepps, senior field organizer for Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, works on issues and policies surrounding abandoned and orphaned wells (both old and new), and has been working to raise the woefully inadequate bonding requirements for oil and gas wells -- including filing a lawsuit last month.  

We'll also talk about the upcoming Pennsylvania Climate Convergence (October 1 & 2 in Harrisburg) -- and note that there's one more Art Build to help create a giant community climate quilt, the day before this salon.  And there are a whole lot of other important events happening in our region;  check out the list below!

In-person salons go from 3 p.m. to 8 or 9;  the Zoom side for this hybrid event will start around 4 p.m. (when presentations begin) and wind down when we break for the potluck supper. 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 time 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).

Other events and whatnot:

•  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 and Sept 2 & 23rd:  Art Build!  In conjunction with the upcoming Pennsylvania Climate Convergence, 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, or make your own squares and bring them to Maren by Sept 29.  

•  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 to demonstrate how much local residents care about climate!  If you'd like to speak, please fill out this form.  

•  Sept 15:  Mark Dixon on Exploring Air Pollution: Monitoring and Mitigation.  More info here,  zoom link here. 

•  Sept 17:  March to End Fossil Fuels in NYC, in conjunction with Climate Week.  Sierra Club is sponsoring a bus from Southwestern Pennsylvania.

•  Sept 20:  Better Path Presents investigative journalist Justin Nobel on radioactive fracking waste.  Register here;  more info here (check out his new article).

•  Sept 20-21:  Walk with Little Amal -- this 12-foot puppet symbolizes global refugees.  In five events around Pittsburgh she will visit the similarly giant ironworks at Carrie Furnace, share the works of Billy Strayhorn and August Wilson, celebrate with new citizens, and play with children.

•  Sept 21:  The Audubon Society of Western PA and the Buffalo Creek Coalition are hosting a webinar with Doug Tallamy, who will remind us of the many essential roles insects play in our ecosystem, and the simple changes we need to make in our landscapes and our attitudes in order to keep insects on the ground, in the air, and yes, on our plants.  More info & registration here.

•  Sept 22:  The PA Solar Center is hosting a webinar on Solar + Storage + Microgrids.  More info & registration here.

•  Sept 22:  Local climate rally by Sunrise Pittsburgh and Fossil Free Pitt (3-6 at PNG, 375 N Shore Drive).

•  Sept 23:  Pittsburgh's annual Urban Farm Tour! 

•  Sept 23:  One more Quilt 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 (with "quilt" in the Subject line) to participate, or make your own squares according to these specs and bring them to Maren by Sept 29. 

•  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.  There's a bus from Southwestern Pennsylvania, organized by ProtectPT and sponsored by Food & Water Watch and Earthworks.  

•  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.

•  Oct 11:  The Center for Coalfield Justice and the Donora Smog Museum are hosting a webinar to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Donora Smog in 1948, the worst air pollution disaster in U.S. history -- and which led to the creation of the Clean Air Act of 1963.  Details and registration here;  more Donora-related events 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 hope (finding it, creating it, using it), 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!).