MarensList is Experiencing Technical Difficulties
Due to a change in how this platform works, some years back it become very difficult to make new postings for future events. I hope to find a solution, but in the meantime my apologies for a rather thin array of postings lately! I do consolidate a wide variety of events in each Sustainability Salon listing, so look there for "Other Items of Interest" or "Other Events & Whatnot". There really is a lot going on... note that I also share events on Facebook (but not as Facebook Events), so look me up there if you're at loose ends (or just poke around on MarensList).
Local food resources
The Putting Down Roots Sustainability Salons have continued each month since February, 2012. The second Sustainability Salon (as well as the 14th, 15th, 26th, 27th, 38th, 39th, 51st, 52nd, 62nd, 63rd, 64th, 74th, 75th, 87th, 88th, 98th, 99th, 110th, 111th, 122nd, 123rd, 135th, and 136th and many others) focused on food -- growing it, sourcing it locally, and eating more humanely. Afterwards, Maren put together a list of many such local sources: CSA farms, farmers' markets, grassfed and humanely raised meats and dairy, natural foods suppliers, bakeries, and advocacy organizations. This list now resides on a growing Resources section of the Putting Down Roots Blogger site. Click on the tomatoes to teleport over there!
June 14: Sustainability Salon on U.S. Steel’s Plans for a New Hot Strip Mill in Braddock
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| Edgar Thomson Works (as it is now) in Braddock, PA. Photo by Mark Dixon. |
Nippon/U.S. Steel has submitted an installation permit application with the Allegheny County Health Department for a new hot strip mill (and other project-related facilities) to be built at Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock. If built, it would be a major new facility producing 3.5 million tons of steel coils per year, but it would also introduce significant new emissions to a community already beleaguered by industrial pollution; it would drive increases in PM10, PM2.5, CO, NOx, VOC, ammonia, H2S, and SO2 emissions in the Braddock area. And CO2 equivalent emissions would be expected to increase from ~1.2M tons per year to ~2M tons/year. This is preliminary information about a fast-moving situation, and the details may evolve as we learn more, but clearly both local air quality and global climate goals are at risk.
Several organizations including North Braddock Residents for Our Future, GASP (Group Against Smog and Pollution), and the Breathe Project have begun to organize around the issue, but there is lots to learn and much more to do. For the 173rd Sustainability Salon, we'll take a look at this potential source of substantial additional air pollution, and take stock of where we are in the process and what can be done about it. Speakers will include Matthew Mehalik, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Breathe Project, with information about the new installation permit application, and Mark Dixon, environmental filmmaker and air quality activist.
In the evening, we'll be able to livestream the national No Kings concert together.
More speakers are in the works. As always, the latest can be found here on MarensList. Please also check out the list below for other important events happening in our region (and online).
This salon will probably (weather permitting) be hybrid, with in-person and Zoom options. I'll be in touch with RSVP'd folks about weather decisions (and if numbers are small may do the event inside). The program will start around 3 p.m.; in-person folks can arrive after 2:30. 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 including directions, to all who have RSVP'd. If you're new to Zoom, you may find my Zoom Reference Guide helpful.
Note that starting last fall, I shifted salons an hour EARLIER, at least for this fall and winter, and maybe beyond --the program will start around 3 p.m. Eastern. Why? During our sabbatical in Ireland last year, I connected with many new friends and enviro-colleagues, some of whom have or will speak at salons, and others who are interested in attending. And there's generally a five-hour time difference (sometimes 4 or 6 hours because our savings-time shifts are on different dates). Also, logistics have evolved with in-person salons since 2021, so earlier should also work better here at our Pittsburgh site.
Other events and whatnot (times are U.S. Eastern, links on MarensList):
• June 6: PA DEP's Climate Conversation: the state wants to hear from you, too! (tell 'em that ranking 47th in the nation for renewables is not good enough!!) Noon to 2 p.m. at the Carnegie Library's Homewood branch. Register here. Virtual event on June 11th; see below.
• June 7: Wild Ones annual native plant sale and event. On-site native garden tour, landscaper Q&A, live music, and vendors with food & bev, arts, green products of all sorts, and of course plants! 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. at Allegheny Rivertrail Park (285 River Ave. in Aspinwall).
• June 11: Virtual Pennsylvania DEP Climate Conversation. Noon to 1:30 p.m., online. Register here.
• June 14: Rise Up, Sing Out! A Concert for the First Amdenment; an Evening to Build Community. It'll be about reclaiming patriotism as something inclusive, participatory, and rooted in care for one another -- not power, pageantry, or one person's spotlight. As we're already gathered for a Sustainability Salon we can have our own watch party, but there will be other events all over the country (probably others in Pittsburgh, though none appear to be scheduled yet). 7:30 p.m.; more information here.
• June 16: The Pittsburgh Labor Choir and local labor leaders present Songs and Struggles, presentations about local labor fights interspersed with labor songs new and old that have lifted spirits at demonstrations and picket lines. 7 p.m. at the Acoustic Music Works Southside Performance Space (1219 Bingham St.). $15, proceeds will benefit the Pittsburgh News Guild. Reserve your spot here!
• June 24: Allegheny County Climate Action Plan (CAP) virtual public meeting. The County wants to hear from you about the draft Climate Action Plan. You can weigh in on energy, food, water, pollution, transit, and more. ASL and Spanish translations will be provided. Additional language interpretation may be available on request. 6-8 p.m., online. Register here.
• June 24: Exploring Ancient Oceans, a program for kids by UpstreamPgh. 4-6 p.m. at the Wilkinsburg Library. More information here.
• To find ways to get active in our region, 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. There's also Fighting Back, by Alison, with up-to-date emails on lots and lots of protest actions and other events. Nobody can be everywhere, but all of us should be somewhere!
• And for valuable perspective on the day's news, consider following Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich, Rebecca Solnit, and/or Robert Hubbell. In our own region, folks like Patricia DeMarco, John Russell, and Susan Kaye Quinn are worth your time. Their work can be found variously in places like Substack, YouTube, BlueSky, Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook, and their own books, blogs, newsletters, and/or podcasts. This list is hardly comprehensive, but these links can connect you with some of our time's leading thinkers, writers, and speakers.
• 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 farm labor, closing the nutrient cycle, data centers (Part I & Part II), policy advocacy, greener buying, local environmental authors (Part I & Part II) honey forests & friends, 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!).
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