Happy Earth Day! The 147th Sustainability Salon will return to our annual two-month focus on Food.

Notes: (a) If weather allows we'll be in person, mostly outdoors (with hybrid Zoom access for faraway folks) -- but please check back here as the date approaches, as it may be too wet or chilly -- in which case we'll still be on Zoom. (b) I am shifting to a new platform (the movement-oriented Humanitix), so there may be some glitches, and for some folks this could be the first time you've heard from me in a while. It also means that there may not be a general Reminder Email to my whole big list later in the week -- so please mark your calendar, and RSVP even if you're a maybe! (c) do take a look at the Other Events list below -- lots going on! And as always, you can visit MarensList for the latest!

Tree Pittsburgh's Giving Grove program is part of a national initiative, offering fruit and nut trees (and berries!) to public spaces throughout Allegheny County. Kimberly Bracken, who manages our local Giving Grove program, earned her Permaculture Design Certificate through Phipps Conservatory. She always strives to incorporate permaculture design into the new and existing orchards she works with. She is passionate about finding ways of growing food that also increase biodiversity, support pollinators and birds, and create beautiful gathering spaces for communities.

Do you love homemade bread, but can't get it together for the whole sequence of mixing and rising and punchdown and kneading and rising again? Linsdsey Disler, in the Food Studies program at Chatham, will share fascinating lore and practical tips on quick breads, with all sorts of connections to history, forests, and women's well-being.

Molly Draper, also in Chatham Food Studies, has been exploring the landscape of indigenous foodways and land care.

Check back on MarensList for updates! The next Sustainability Salon (on either May 19th or the 26th) will continue our regular spring series on Food.

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

We'll see how the forecast develops for the salon day -- we'll either be in-person (and mostly outdoors, but also accessible via Zoom)), or just on Zoom, depending on the weather! 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) -- 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 Humanitix (a new platform!!), 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:

• Apr 24: Join Food & Water Watch for Planet vs. Plastic, a deep dive into the history of the plastics industry. 4 p.m. online; register here.

• Apr 25: If you operate a local business, and would like to explore this month's salon topic further, check out this all-day event by Humane Action Pittsburgh: Serving Up Sustainability. More information and registration here.

• Apr 26: The Pittsburgh Labor Choir presents a May Day concert! 7 p.m. at the Vietnam Veterans Pavilion in Schenley Park.

• Apr 27 & 28: Penn Garvin, who framed our recent four-part series on Movement-Building, will be in Pittsburgh for a two-day workshop on Strategic Organizing and Nonviolent Direct Action. More details here!

• May 1: A concert celebrating the life and legacy of renowned musician and activist Anne Feeney, featuring Emma's Revolution, the Pittsburgh Labor Choir, Liz Berlin (of Rusted Root), Bev Grant, Evan Greer, Chris Chandler, Colleen Kattau, and Mike Stout. Panel discussion at Heinz History Center at noon, concert starting at 6 p.m. at Mr. Smalls Theater (with a livestream option!). Join us in using music to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable". RSVP here.

• May 1: Allegheny Land Trust and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh present "Nature Nearby: Gardening with Native Plants". 6 p.m. at CLP -- Woods Run (1201 Woods Run Ave., 15212).

• May 24-27: Heartwood Forest Council is coming to southeastern Ohio. You can hear organizer Matt Peters talk about the organization and the gathering on this interview/podcast-style video (he starts talking about Heartwood a little after 12 minutes in -- more local stuff before that). More information and registration here.

• ReImagine Food Systems, which we've talked about at past salons, is raising funds for this 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 more than a year 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.

• And speaking of solidarity, the Cop City controversy is still raging in Atlanta. More information and a support fund are here. There's also talk of a similar facility in the works for Pittsburgh.

• Another forest that needs protecting is Sherwood Forest, in Mason Co., WA -- at risk of clear-cutting by a company headquartered here in Pittsburgh. You can learn more (and donate to the legal fund if you can) here.

• 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? Check out this introductory video -- or even better, 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 six 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).

Ferny view — View from the rain garden in spring

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 (if there weren't a pandemic) 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. Originally a potluck mini-conference, the event has been mostly on Zoom since March 2020, except for some outdoor summer (and now hybrid!) salons.

Past topics have included 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, 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!).