June 29: Sustainability Salon on Air Quality Education and Environmental Behaviors -- Across the Atlantic

For the 161st Sustainability Salon, we'll begin a Transatlantic series (on Zoom).  

The city of Cork, in southern Ireland, has been working hard to become a healthier, safer, more inclusive, and more sustainable city.  For instance, Cork intends to become net-zero by 2030!  In this respect, Pittsburgh can surely learn a lot from this Irish port city, which has the second-largest natural harbor in the world (after Sydney's).  Over the coming months, we'll be looking at climate action plans, air-quality communications and regulations, flood risk management, waste as resource, the health benefits of nature, and other topics through a transatlantic lens -- with speakers from Cork and elsewhere in Ireland, and also from Pittsburgh -- and we'll certainly learn things from each other! 

Individual decisions and practices are far from the whole story --  if we're gonna turn this ship around, we need systemic change and an end to industry handouts and corporate sway over governments.  But that doesn't mean that we're off the hook, either;  individual actions add up!  So let's do what we can, while advocating for large-scale change.  

This month, we'll feature the BehaviAir program (BEHAViour and Impacts on AIR quality).  In Ireland, much of the air pollution and climate emissions come from heating and transportation, and so individuals can have a large influence on these impacts -- but citizens often don't know how, or even why, to make changes.  BehaviAir combines air quality forecasting with co-created, targeted messaging to reduce polluting behaviors.  We'll hear from the two leaders of the program:  Dean Venables is an atmospheric chemist at University College Cork, part of the Center for Research into Atmospheric Chemistry (CRAC).  Marica Cassarino is an environmental psychologist studying the psychosocial drivers of pro-environmental behaviors.

Bringing data and public engagement together in Appalachia, the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University is both a technology breeding ground and a community partner.  Since 2015, they've worked to co-design tools to document pollution and empower communities to understand their relationship with pollution and the environment -- and work to improve air quality.  Ana Hoffman is a geographer who develops data-framed narratives to amplify voices fighting for equity and environmental justice, and to support policymaking that protects public health.  She directs the Air Quality program at CMU's CREATE Lab, which has produced BreatheCams, the SmellPgh and PlumePgh apps, and many other creative and high-tech initiatives.  

The next salon, which will look at how science begets environmental regulations, will be on July 27th.  There are also a whole lot of other important events happening in our region;  check out the list below.

This salon will be on Zoom.  You can join the Zoom starting at 3 if you'd like to chat , and the talks and discussion usually wind down sometime around 7 or so; 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 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 (times are EDT):

•  June 11:  What do all these data center proposals mean for Pennsylvanians?  Join ProtectPT, Environmental Health Project, Three Rives Waterkeeper, Breathe Project, and the Loudoun Climate Project for a webinar:  "Is Pennsylvania Ready for Data Centers?   It's a Lot to Compute!"  7 p.m. on Zoom.  More information and registration here.   

•  June 12:  Our transit system is in a funding crisis;  huge cuts are proposed including decreased service and route elimination, which will leave many residents high and dry without the buses they rely on.  You can attend a public hearing on proposed deep cuts to public transit.  9 a.m. - 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the David Lawrence Convention Center downtown.  Lots more information on these proposals here.  You can also comment via an online survey here 'till the 18th.  

•  June 12:  ReImagine Appalachia presents Make it in Appalachia:  Transforming Shuttered Coal Plants into Modern Manufacturing Hubs.  1 p.m., via Zoom.  More information and registration here. 

•  June 18:  Last day to comment on the transit cuts!  You can make your voice heard with the survey link here. 

•  June 23-28:  Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice:  COP30 and Beyond.  More information and registration here. 

•  July 12:  Pittsburgh's Environmental Action Day, starting with a rally at the City-County Building followed by a short march to more activities on the waterfront.  9-noon;  more information and registration here.

•  July 12:  7th annual Swissvale Edible Garden Tour.   9 a.m. - 1 p.m. open gardens;  info at the Farmers' Market.  1:30-3:30 p.m., community picnic at the market.  More details here.

•  July 27:  Sustainability Salon on policy approaches to environmental issues here and in Ireland:  the Smoky Fuels Ban.  More information here.

•  Sept 18-20:  Building worker power where unions were born:  the WV Mine Wars Museum's Camp Solidarity in historic Matewan, WV.  More information and registration here. 

•  Again, I encourage local folks to sign up for the Indivisible Grassroots Pittsburgh email list, which will bring you lots more listings, more frequently --email Debra.

•  Training and running AI models requires a lot of energy and water demand for power and cooling. Big tech companies are currently meeting data center resource demands with fossil fuel energy and huge water withdrawals—actions that clearly contradict their sustainability commitments.  Climate Action Now has a petition to pressure Meta to clean up their act.  

•  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.  

•  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!  

•  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; upcoming events are listed here.  For household chemicals, here's the link.

•  The Rachel Carson EcoVillage is still looking for a few more members.  Curious?  You can sign up for an introduction session or sign up as an “inquirer” to have more information sent to you.

•  Have you seen the film Single-Use Planet (hopefully soon to appear on PBS), or The Story of Plastic, or the PBS docs Plastic Wars, Fenceline, and We're All Plastic People Now?  (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 farming, building with wood, food justice, Mutual Aid networks, activism in the coming years, COVID caution and community care, 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!).