Dec 8: Sustainability Salon on Activism (and Life) in the Years Ahead, Part I -- COVID Caution and Community Care

One of the very few masked passengers on a train...

We are in a new world.  Turbulent political times, global climate disruption, and pandemics are among the ways in which the ground has shifted beneath us.  This month, for the 155th Sustainability Salon, we'll begin a series on Activism (and Life) in the Years Ahead.  

Each year in early December we've featured topics relevant to the upcoming holidays -- most often different angles on Consumption (with the not-so-secret goal of sending people forth to buy less stuff).  This time, we'll look at the realities of COVID-19 and ways to approach them -- just in time to prepare for holiday travel and family gatherings.  And at the first in-person, indoor salon since February of 2020, we'll demonstrate a number of measures that groups can take to meet more safely, from advanced testing to ventilation and air purifiers to the right kinds of PPE.  If all goes well, the salon will be hybrid (with a Zoom option);  please let me know which way you plan to attend!   Note that those who attend in person will be masking while indoors for at least the presentation portion of the event (more details below).  And I've been traveling (as seen in the event photo) -- while mostly masked, I was still at some risk;  if I test positive then we'll shift to Zoom-only.  So please be sure to RSVP so I can let you know if that happens!  

Next month (January 12th) we'll talk about how the political landscape is changing, and what that means for human rights, civil rights, health, the environment, protesting, privacy, and how best to continue our activism. 

Mark's flyer with safety tips

COVID-19 isn't behind us, and other potential health crises like avian flu and mpox are under close watch. We see people all around who are tired of the pandemic and wish it to be over, but at the same time, cases -- and deaths, and debilitating health impacts -- continue. 

Filmmaker, photographer, and environmental activist Mark Dixon will set the scene, sharing the latest science about COVID (both acute and long COVID).  He'll talk about health impacts, vulnerable populations, detection, protective measures, and principles of community care.  He'll demonstrate highly-accurate molecular testing, and tell us about Clean Air Tools Pittsburgh, a lending library for air filters and UV technology.

Why are so many people still so concerned about COVID?  Anaïs Peterson is a young activist -- formerly healthy, vital, and always careful about exposure -- who was infected with COVID a couple of years ago, and hasn't been the same since.  They'll share this harrowing experience.  Anaïs is also part of Mask Up Pittsburgh, and will fill us in on the resources available through that initiative.

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

Folks can arrive starting at 3 p.m. -- but expect to mask (N95 or better) while indoors, at least during the presentation portion of the event.  We will have N95 masks available to anyone who doesn't have one.  With temps breaking into the high 40's on Sunday, it should be warm enough to have snacks on the back porch.  If you have any symptoms overlapping with COVID (including but not limited to coughing, headache, runny nose, or fever), please stay home and participate via Zoom -- and we hope you feel better soon!

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 unseasonably warm weather?  There's usually lots of gardening activity around here (including dismantling part of the roof garden to prepare for some roof repairs) -- 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!  

•  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.

•  Dec 8:  Pittsburgh Green New Deal general membership meeting.   Come get active with Pittsburgh Green New Deal!  (3-4:30 p.m. via Zoom;  open to all) 

•  Dec 18:  Better Path Presents Knowing Your Rights, first in a series on Navigating What's Next.  More information on Facebook.   4-5:30 on Zoom; register here. 

•  Dec 21:  Yule Sensory Hike with CoNectar and the Allegheny Land Trust.  4-6 p.m. at Girty's Woods;  more info and registration 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 nature education/volunteer programs, 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!).