Aug 24: Sustainability Salon with Honey, Forests, and Friends

A scratchboard bee-portrait Maren made years ago

This month's salon will be in person, for the first time in a while!  (Maren and Neil have just returned from his sabbatical in Ireland).  We'll also be on Zoom for faraway folks and others unable to attend in person.

80% of flowering plants are dependent upon pollinators for reproduction, and it is estimated that one in every three bites of food comes from these flowering plants -- including fruits, veggies, chocolate, coffee, nuts and spices.  For the 163rd Sustainability Salon, Cornell Master Beekeeper and artist Christina Joy Neumann operates both Apoidea Apiary, with 70-80 hives all around Pittsburgh, and CoNectar, a community gathering space for multi-sensory education.  CoNectar's mission is to connect all communities to multi-sensory "flora-to-table" education, creating curricula and providing programs that demonstrate the key role pollinators play in food systems and our broader ecology.  Christina, who is also a member of the Italian National Register of Experts in the Sensory Analysis of Honey, will combine a talk "Native, Invasive, and Naturalized:  Exploring urban ecology dynamics through honey sensory analysis" with an interactive tasting of some of her artisan honeys -- notably including Linden, Goldenrod, and even honey made from bees' foraging on honeydew from the infamous Spotted Lanternflies!  And we'll also learn about the sensory characteristics (and thus botanical origins) of honey from Maren's rooftop apiary.

Matt Peters is the administrative coordinator for Heartwood, "People helping people protect the places they love".  Heartwood is a network of grassroots forest defenders throughout the eastern US, with members and member-groups throughout Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley region.  Matt will give an update on current threats to nearby national forests in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and talk about ways you can help stop industrial logging of our public lands. 

Heartwood is holding their annual Reunion at the farm where they were founded, October 3-5 near Paoli, IN on the edge of the Hoosier National Forest. Matt will talk about carpool and ride-share opportunities in his brief description of what we're planning for this year's event. More information and online registration (soon) here. 

Two salons ago, we talked about the Endangerment Finding, which has enabled the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions since 2009.  The current EPA, however, is proposing to reconsider those regulations, along with motor vehicle standards.  Public comments are due by Sept 2, or 15, or 22 (gee, is the EPA dysfunctional or something?  Earlier is better.).  Here is the rulemaking docket, where you can see others' comments and make your own.  Local energy policy expert Patricia DeMarco and GASP's Patrick Campbell have also made their testimony available, to inspire others to add comments, and Moms Clean Air Force put together this great toolkit -- we'll have a table where folks can get together to craft convincing comments!  

Also, our offspring Innes is here briefly (for a ceramics workshop), before heading back to Ireland (where they now live and teach pottery).  We'll also have a table with some of their beautiful ceramics available for purchase, in case you're looking for a handmade kitchen accessory (or 20-sided die!) for yourself or as a gift.

Apart from that, we'll have time to simply hang out and catch up, along the lines of our quasi-annual No-Topic salon, when, as Maren says, "I don't have to interrupt the Conversations for the Presentations!"  

The next salon will be on September 28th.

There are also a whole lot of other important events happening in our region;  check out the list below!

This salon will be both in-person and on Zoom. Zoom access will start around 4 p.m. -- and will probably wind down around 8 or so, but this month much of the time will be informal conversation. The main program (Christina's interactive talk) will probably be around 5 or 6 p.m. (as always, 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 U.S. Eastern):

•  July 30 & Aug 13:  One Million Rising: virtual training on strategic non-cooperation to fight authoriatianism.  Wednesdays, 8-9:30 p.m.  More information and registration here.  A recording is available for the previous session.

•  Aug 27:  Webinar on the State of Solar in Pennsylvania, by PennFuture and the Conservation Voters of PA.  6 p.m. online;  more information and registration here.

•  Aug 30, 31, & Sept 2: Single-Use Planet film screening in Sewickley.  Saturday and Tuesday afternoons and Sunday evening.  Details and tickets here. 

•  Sept 2:  Two salons ago, we talked about the Endangerment Finding, which has enabled the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions since 2009.  The current EPA, however, is proposing to reconsider those regulations, and motor vehicle standards.  Public comments are due by Sept 22.  Here is the rulemaking docket, where you can see others' comments and make your own.  Local energy policy expert Patricia DeMarco has also made her detailed testimony available, to inspire others to add comments.  The EPA site gives various deadlines for comments Sept 2, Sept 15, and Sept 22 -- best to get 'em in soon!)

•  Sept 17:  The PA DEP has proposed the air quality permit for the 4+ GW Homer City gas plant, planned in support of a data center.  The public hearing is scheduled for September 17 in Indiana, Pa.  Written comments are due on September 29.  DEP has posted a webpage with links to documents here.  

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

•  Sept 28:  The 164th Sustainability Salon, with local authors.

•  Oct 3-5:  Heartwood's annual Reunion.  Near Paoli, IN (transportation help available).  More information and online registration (soon) here. 

•  US Steel's Clairton Cokeworks has once again been in the news, for the wrong reasons.  Deadly explosions earlier this month killed two workers and injured ten more, not to mention exacerbating air quality problems in the Mon Valley -- leading to questions about the facility's future.  You can support workers and residents through mutual-aid efforts by Valley Clean Air Now (VCAN and Take Action Advocacy Group (TAAG)

•  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.

•  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 well over 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 air science into policy, air quality education and engagement,  farming and succession, 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!).