Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Oil and Gas Ordinance Update: Monday, June 3 at 7:00 PM at the Monroeville Public Library!

FREE and Open to the Public:

Please join us on Monday evening, June 3, 2018 in the downstairs program room of the Monroeville Public Library from 7:00 to 8:30 PM for an update about the existing and planned oil and gas ordinance for Monroeville, PA. No matter where you live, this will be an incredibly informative and important evening. 

Thank you Monroeville resident Kelly Yagatich, Gateway High School and University of Pittsburgh graduate, for planning this educational evening for the residents, council, Mayor, Municipal Manager, and beyond! 

Kelly, your generation is our future. May the next 7 generations carry on in your footsteps.

Blessings to us all as we move greacefully into our Regenerative Future NOW! 

Elisa B., Lois D. and Dave M. for Sustainable Monroeville :)













From the amazing Patricia DeMarco, our Western PA local Rachel Carsonesque incredible woman:

As my May blog post in Pathways and Transitions, I am sharing the keynote address I gave in Wheeling West Virginia at a Green New Deal Town Hall.  This is the time to recognize that the transition away from fossil fuels is no longer optional, but critical for our survival.  The path forward offers better choices, robust opportunities and a brighter future for our children and grandchildren.  We must decide to leave a living planet as our legacy.  We must organize and campaign for justice and fairness in the transformation.

Green Jobs and a Living Planet - Make it Happen! https://patriciademarco.com/blog-2/

For more discussion on this topic, join the Battle of Homestead Foundation for a roundtable discussion "Labor and Environmental Coalitions: A Must for survival of Both" on June 8, 2019 at 1:30 to 3:00 PM at the Pump House 880 East Waterfront Drive, Munhall PA 15120  Free and open to the public.

In Solidarity,
Patty
Live in harmony with nature

Patricia M. DeMarco, Ph.D.
Author: "Pathways to Our Sustainable Future-  Global Perspective from Pittsburgh"
Forest Hills Borough Council, 2016-2020
Visiting Researcher & Writer, Carnegie Mellon University
Senior Scholar and Adjunct Faculty, Chatham University
2017 William Freudenburg Lifetime Achievement Award
2018 Visionary of the Year- PA Interfaith Power and Light
(412) 708-9277

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Happy Mothers of the Earth Day!

Happy Mother Earth Day!

Feeling compelled as a Mother today to post about Mother Earth, as our voice is her voice. Let's tell the new story of our regenerative future. Stand up and speak your truth in the midst of all of this madness. Let's tell the new story, and let's begin this new era today!

If you live in Monroeville, call and e-mail your councilperson to show your support to put a protective of the citizens detailed and updated gas and oil ordinance in place right away following the lead of Oakmont. Ask your council member why he or she has not yet acted on the recommendations of Sustainable Monroeville. Then please let us know if their answer to you is satisfactory. Ask your councilperson what regenerative future ideas are being implemented into the consent decree stormwater management plans for the Municipality of Monroeville. Will residents be educated and required to attach rain barrels on each of their downspouts at the expense of the municipality through the fee we are paying yearly? Will the community be educated about installing rain gardens and bio-swales in their landscapes? Will we work together as citizens to create Food, not Lawns laden with chemicals? Will we put ordinances in place to grow pesticide-free food everywhere?

If you are not already planning to vote, put May 21, 2019 on your calendar. If you live in Allegheny County, be sure to vote for Jenkins for District Attorney and if you live in East Pittsburgh, be sure to vote for Jonathan Reyes for East Pittsburgh Council at Large. Vote for Patricia DeMarco in Forest Hills!

Get involved in your local community to the best of your ability. Learn all you can and then ACT!

Join Protect PT! PT stands for Penn Township and Trafford, our neighboring communities who are dealing with many potential fracking wells and infrastructure in their community several of which are less than a mile from our community of Monroeville. Attend Sustainable Monroeville events with your family, friends and neighbors to keep up to date.

If you know anyone in the state of Colorado, or if you have $5.00 or much more to spare, please support dianaforcolorado.com. Diana Bray is my childhood friend and is the ONLY environmental candidate who states her opposition to fracking running for U.S. Senate from the state of Colorado. The competition is fierce, so if you feel called, PLEASE support her campaign!

Here's a few interesting excerpts from David Korten's 2015 book titled Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth.

From Chapter 5 titled Children of a Living Earth, pp. 74-75:

"Acting as a community in concert with Earth's physical structures and forces, Earth's diverse species filtered excess carbon and a vast variety of toxins from earth's air, waters, and soils and sequestered them deep underground. In so doing- whether by luck or deep cosmic intention-they created environmental conditions necessary for the birth of a species with a capacity for conscious, creative, self-reflective choice far beyond any other."

"In a collective trance induced by the idolatrous Sacred Money and Markets story, we of that species now devote our best minds and technologies to extracting and releasing those sequestered carbons and toxins back into Earth's atmosphere, waters and soils as money-seeking corporate robots exploit and suppress Earth's natural processes to make a quick buck, Our acceptance of this insanity is the ultimate demonstration of the potentially fatal consequence of living by a fabricated Sacred Money and Markets story."

from page 76:

"Hope lies in the evidence that we are reawakening in what I believe to be a fundamental truth of our existence. We humans, like all other beings, are both product and instrument of creation, not its purpose. We belong to Earth, and our health and well-being are inseparable from her health and well-being."

David Korten goes on to elaborate about Living Communities and moving from Abuser to Healer. There is hope. So let's get busy changing ourselves and therefore lovely, amazing, nurturing Mother Earth!

Many blessings for a wonderful day and lots of brand new beginnings! Hey, if you're not already eating a plant-based diet, try it out for one or two meals a week and gradually reduce your consumption of dairy, red meat, chicken and fish. Both your body and Mother Earth will thank you!

Join the Plant Based Eating Hub on June 30 at Temple David for a Pop-Up Plant-based eating event. It will be educational and delicious. Go to PlantBasedEatingHub.com for details!

And if you're feeling especially excited about our Regenerative Future NOW, attend Phipps' Conservatory's Big Green Block Party on Thursday May 16, 2019!

Namasté,

Elisa Beck on behalf of Panchamama, Mother Earth :)