Nov 17: Sustainability Salon on Nature Training & Volunteer Programs

Deer at the edge of Frick Park

[This salon was originally scheduled for November 3rd, but was postponed to November 17th. The event will be hybrid, in-person (for hardy folk who don't mind a brisk fall afternoon in the shade, and who wear layers) along with a Zoom option.]  

Are you fascinated by the natural world?  Do you want to help preserve and restore our local ecosystems, and engage others in learning about them?  This month, for the 154th Sustainability Salon, we'll be talking about a number of nature training and volunteer initiatives active in our region, and how you can get involved.  This salon will probably be on Zoom.

The Pennsylvania Master Naturalist program has built a corps of knowledgeable, skilled, and dedicated volunteers who undertake conservation and education projects in our ecoregion,  Training includes classes and field trips on geology, biology, ecology, habitats, invasives, communication, and citizen science, and connects participants to fellow naturalists and partner organizations.  Susie Moffett, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Coordinator for PaMN, will share details about the program -- just in time to apply for the spring cohort (with training sessions at the Frick Environmental Center).  

If you've caught the gardening bug, there are two Master Gardener programs to choose from!  Penn State Extension and Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens both run programs, with similar educational scope but different volunteer involvement.  Gabe Tilove is director of adult education and community outreach at Phipps, where he oversees the Master Gardener training program;  he will speak about their program, whose next cohort is also starting soon. 

Several local organizations including the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and UpstreamPgh (formerly the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association) collaborated to create the Urban EcoStewards program, through which area residents look after particular areas of city parks (erosion control, planting native plants, and especially removing invasives)... each of these areas is much the better for the attention.  Upstream's Keith Moore coordinates the UES program in the Nine Mile Run watershed, as well as helping to manage and monitor the region's ecosystems.

Similarly, the Penn State Master Watershed Steward program was established to educate and empower volunteers to protect environmental resources. Those accepted to the program attend training classes focusing on a broad range of environmental resource topics, including groundwater, stream ecology, wetlands, soils, geology, native and invasive plants, water recreation, climate science, and stormwater management. Viv Shaffer is a Master Watershed Steward, closely involved in her local CDC and the Negley Run Watershed Task Force, former director of the Rachel Carson Homestead, and currently engaged in a project to reforest 300 acres of legacy mineland.  

Pittsburghers all benefit from our city's urban forest.  Tree Pittsburgh helps to maintain and expand our tree canopy, in part with the help of hundreds of citizen Tree Tenders, who plant and care for street trees all around town.  Tree Pittsburgh staff are busy with tree-planting at this time of year, so Maren and Viv, both longtime Tree Tenders, will share updated information on the program.  

And speaking of trees, local forest activist Matt Peters will be with us with an update on the Sylvan Avenue Trail situation, which he introduced at August's salon on Forest Protection. 

Our program is still in flux; check back for any updates!

There's also a whole lot of other important events happening in our region (or online);  please check out the list below for a few of 'em.

If it is ridiculously warm for mid-November, folks can arrive starting at 3 p.m.  Directions and other info will be forthcoming, in a separate email to all who RSVP.  Zoom salons (and the Zoom side for hybrid events), start around 4 p.m., when presentations begin, and usually wind down sometime around 7 or 8 (informal discussion may continue after that, over a yummy potluck supper) -- join us for whatever time works for you!  If you're not already on my salon email 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!  If you RSVP via Eventbrite, you'll receive the Zoom registration link right away. Along about Saturday night/Sunday morning, I'll send it out again, with directions and other information, to all who have RSVP'd.  If you're new to Zoom, you may find my Zoom Reference Guide helpful. 

Other events and whatnot:

•  Most days this month:  Want to get outside to enjoy this lovely fall weather?  I'm dismantling part of the roof garden to prepare for some roof repairs, so there's lots of gardening activity -- it's always more fun with company, and educational to boot!  Contact me (text is best, or FB message, or email me as noted above) if you'd like to join in, get your hands in the plants, and go home with garden lore and produce!  

•  Oct 25:  Lead Awareness Town Hall, presented by Clean Water Action and Pittsburgh United.  5:30-8 p.m. at the Carnegie Library's Homewood branch (7101 Hamilton Ave.).  More information and registration here. 

•  Oct 25:  Paint & Sip fundraiser for ReImagine TCWAC.  6-9 p.m. in North Versailles. More information and registration here. 

•  Oct 26 to Nov 3:  Soil Lead Screening (free testing, drop off your samples at locations around town).  More information and registration here.

•  Oct 29:  Join Dianne Peterson for a Lunch & Learn on alternatives to plastics, presented by ProtectPT.  Noon, streaming here.

•  Oct 30: Better Path Presents a recap of Energy Month.  You can also sign their petition, calling for the rapid phase-out of fracking and ramp-up of renewables.  7 p.m. online;  register here.

•  Oct 31:  Join the Black Appalachian Coalition, the Ohio River Valley Institute, and Main ST for a Lunch & Learn session on maternal health.  Noon, on Zoom -- register here.  

•  Nov 2:  "Drink Your Watershed" fundraiser for Three Rivers Waterkeeper (5-9 p.m. at Pittsburgh Brewing Company;  tickets and info here.

•  Nov 3:  Lichen & Local History:  join GASP and historian Jennie Benford for a unique educational walk & talk in Homewood Cemetery.  Lichen is an important bioindicator of air quality...  learn more and register here. 

•  Nov 3:  Pittsburgh Green New Deal general membership meeting.  Allegheny County air quality advocacy, Hurricane Helene and how it relates to our own climate resilience, InvolveMint, and of course the county Climate Action Plan.  Come get active with Pittsburgh Green New Deal!  (4-5:30 p.m. via Zoom;  open to all.  Register here to receive the link.) 

•  Nov 7:  Sylvan Ave. Trail Community Meeting -- learn about the project scope, budget, transparency, and implications for stormwater, erosion & landslide risk, and light pollution -- and share your own vision for the trail.  Hybrid event:  at Community Kitchen Pittsburgh (107 Flowers Ave, 2nd floor (wheelchair accessible, masks encouraged))  and online, captions available:  join by Zoom (meeting ID 879 0125 3674, passcode 037100). 

•  Nov 13:  Pittsburgh Regional Transit recently unveiled a "Bus Line Redesign".Join Pittsburghers for Public Transit, along with PRT staff, to learn more about this initiative that will affect pretty much everybody.  More information and RSVP here, and you can sign on to support PPT's vision here.

•  Nov 21:  Join the Black Appalachian Coalition, the Ohio River Valley Institute, and Main ST for another Petrochemical Lunch & Learn session.  Noon, on Zoom -- register here.  

•  Dec 1:  Pittsburgh Green New Deal general membership meeting.   Come get active with Pittsburgh Green New Deal!  (4-5:30 p.m. via Zoom;  open to all) 

•  Dec 4:  FracTracker Alliance's annual Community Sentinel Awards, honoring activism and advocacy by people championing change on the front lines of the environmental movement.  5-9 p.m. at the Westin (1000 Penn Ave.), with a livestream option.  More information and tickets here. 

•  Dec 7:  Tree Pittsburgh's Tree Tender course.  9 a.m. - 3 p.m. at Tree Pittsburgh's riverside campus; more information and registration (fee) here.

•  Energy Transfer is suing Greenpeace for $300M because they supported the Indigenous-led protests at Standing Rock (claiming that Greenpeace orchestrated the protests).  This is a classic SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), and itself worthy of protest.  Greenpeace has a petition you can sign.  

•  Liquid and solid waste from gas and oil extraction (much of which is radioactive) is currently being stored in a building (part of a former steel mill, which was never cleaned up properly in the first place) near the municipal drinking water source for thousands of people in Martins Ferry, Ohio.  The facility had a permit for 600 tons at a time, but held as much as 10,000 tons.  It is in the floodplain of the Ohio River, and waters rose up to the front doors this spring.  This petition, by Concerned Ohio River Residents, asks officials to halt waste processing there and keep it out of the Source Water Protection Area, clean up the site, and conduct environmental testing and monitoring.  This practice is insane;  we have to stop legitimizing dangerous extractive industries.  

•  ReImagine Food Systems, which we've talked about at past salons (and is part of ReImagine TCWAC), is raising funds for the coming year's operations (food gardens and hands-on education offered at no cost to residents in environmental justice communities, by volunteers).  If you have something to spare, you can contribute via GoFundMe.  And we're always looking for more volunteers, too!  Email reimaginefoodsystems@gmail.com.

•  Concerned Health Professionals of NY recently released the 9th Edition of the Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas & Oil Infrastructure.  Check it out!  

•  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! 

•  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!

•  It's been two years now!  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.

•  PRC continues to hold online workshops about composting, rainwater harvesting, and waste reduction.  They have several Hard-to-Recycle events each year; 2024's are listed here.  For household chemicals, here's the link.

•  The Rachel Carson EcoVillage is still looking for a few more members, so they can start construction!  Curious?  You can 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 seven 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 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.   Beginning in early 2012, salons were originally a potluck mini-conference;  the event has been either on Zoom or outdoor/hybrid since March 2020.  This event series was featured in the Pittsburgh Media Partnership's Pittsburgh Story project on Civic Catalysts -- here's a piece by The Allegheny Front. 

Past topics have included air quality, stories that inspire, forest protection, a celebration of the 150th salon, a closer look at our quarter-acre, reducing single-use plastics, water campaigns, climate campaigns, consumerism, air quality campaigns,  movement-building and sustained campaigns, abandoned oil and gas wells, 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, 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!).