Join us for an inspiring conversation with Patricia M. DeMarco, Ph.D, author of “In the Footsteps of Rachel Carson: Harnessing Earth’s Healing Power”. Discover how you can break free from old patterns, overcome trauma, and reclaim your life through authenticity, healing, and a deep connection to nature. This powerful interview explores the blueprint to becoming your true self — the author of your own story. Don’t miss this transformative dialogue on personal empowerment and ecological wisdom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfxRwsrpyGw
My Dear Colleagues and Friends. The passion for preserving our life support system – the living earth – runs as an elixir of inspiration through our work as teachers, guides and models of living in harmony with Nature. Regardless of any pronouncements or Executive Orders, the laws of Nature are not negotiable.
Earth Day has marked annual community clean-up days, opening farmer’s markets, flower displays and recycling events. But really in this year where the EPA Administrator gleefully proposed rolling back 31 environmental protection regulations that were intended to curtail toxic air emissions like mercury and proliferation of forever chemical materials like PFOS, we need more than one-time reminders and displays. We need to take the issue of actively protecting our life support system seriously. That means addressing climate change with leadership and courage. That means curtailing pollution from man-made materials, especially plastics. And that means looking at our own lifestyle for ways to live with less burden on the earth.
On this Earth Day I share with you Rachel Carson’s words: “…man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man’s future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.” {From Rachel Carson’s essay on Biological Sciences for the National Council of Teachers. In Lost Woods- the Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson. Linda J. Lear (Ed.)Beacon Press. Boston. 1998.Page 165.}
As we celebrate this 55th Earth Day, may we remember that the greatness of a nation is not determined by the number and fame of its billionaires but by the well-being and shared prosperity of its children, the elderly, the infirm and the poorest among us. We cannot have healthy people in a polluted environment. We must offer leadership and give voice to the 73% of Americans, of both parties, who want more direct action on climate change. We who know cannot remain silent in defense of the Living Earth that provides fresh water, oxygen-rich air, fertile ground and the millions of species that constitute the great web of life, of which we humans are but one part.
On this Earth Day re-dedicate yourself to stand as a strong advocate for preserving our living earth…every day! Call you Senators and Congressional Representative today and remind them that our quality of life, indeed our survival, depend on preserving and restoring a healthy environment.
One tulip spared by the rabbits and deer!
Here is the link to my presentation for Earth Day at the Duquesne University Law School
and my interview with Dr. Dana Noescue. 4-22-2025Duquesne_Law-Earth_Day.pptx (11054 kB) Healing the Land and Empowering the People: A Message for Earth Day
DKLL LEGAL TALK SERIES Patricia Demarco-Event.pdf (255 kB) Event Sponsored by DKLL and the 2025 Students of Climate Change Law, Research, and Writing
The interview with Dr. Dana Neascu can be found here.
In this essay, I reflect on the 2024 election results, give some analysis of the situation we face, and some actions forward to create a better outcome. We need a better narrative of how we see the future as a nation of shared prosperity in a healthy, peaceful world. And we need to use the tools of the 21st century to communicate ideas and programs. We need to tell the success stories of taking paths of true and tested policies that support a return to an American Dream that includes everybody, not just the top 10 % of wealthy people.
For me, the solutions are at the community level, because communities- Mayors, Church leaders, civic leaders – we are on the front lines, regardless of what mayhem is cast out from federal policies. Basic institutions have failed everyday people. But tearing down the government does not solve the problems. Returning to the policies of the “Guilded Age” will assure a greater divide in the wealth gap, and leave even more people falling into poverty and despair. We need to build a narrative of inclusion, hope for a better future, and justice for people exploited by this devolution of our society. We must stand together and rethink our way forward from the bottom up. In the United States of America it is not OK for children to go to school hungry, for the maternal and infant mortality rates to fall among the level of underdeveloped countries, for people to work three jobs and still not make ends meet. We need to revive the sense of caring for each other, creating a culture of celebrating the dignity of each person and giving true opportunities for all to thrive together.
Going forward we must hold those in power accountable. If our goal is to build an America where shared prosperity in a healthy world is a reality, not a pipe dream subject to derision and mockery, we must build solidarity. We must re-learn the lessons of the unions that brought safe working conditions and living wages to millions of workers. We need to prepare for meaningful resistance and constructive redirection. We need to study the history of our country and avoid the descent into chaos.
Freedom is not free; democracy comes at the price of citizen responsibility and respect for the rule of law. Freedom without accountability yields chaos. We need to sharpen the tools of resistance to tyranny. We need to sharpen the tools of organizing collective action. Could we mount a general strike or a rolling series of strikes these days? Do consumers have the knowledge and tools to harness boycotts to bring polluters to heel? Do we have a communication system to support organized resistance to discrimination, racism and suppression of rights? We need to step onto our power and build a New American Dream that makes liberty and justice for all a reality.
I wish all of you my readers, colleagues and friends all the Blessings of this Christmas and Holiday Season. May we build a New Year for Peace in the world, with love in our lives, and Joy in our hearts.
It is time for a new National Energy Policy to support a clean, modern energy system. The energy sector is the largest contributor to emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing climate change.[i] Consumers see rising prices for electricity and hear industry complaints about onerous regulations and government curtailment.[ii] Utility companies struggle to address reliability of service requirements and universal service standards even as data centers and AI applications add intense demands for electricity.[iii] Much of the focus on climate action involves shifting to electricity for buildings, transportation and even industry. If the country is to meet climate goals, the shift from burning coal, natural gas and petroleum for power generation must occur much more rapidly.[iv]
Transforming the nation’s energy system to one based on renewable and sustainable resources is a critical element in responding to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Unfortunately, practitioners in the renewable energy systems space currently encounter significant regulatory and institutional barriers to rapid and efficient implementation of new technologies and practices.[v] National energy policy is needed, including an update to the energy industry’s regulatory framework, to advance the modernization of our country’s electricity delivery system.
The current regulatory framework is built around centralized energy generation from utility monopolies that deliver electricity to customers residing across a wide geographical territory. Under the National Energy Act of 1992, partial deregulation of the nation’s electricity system took place, leaving a patchwork quilt of conditions in place across the country: 17 states are fully competitive with customer choice for electricity generation and gas supplies; 9 are deregulated for gas suppliers only; and 23 remain fully regulated for electricity and gas.
Modernizing the nation’s electrical grid system means moving away from this current model of centralized energy generation towards generating energy on site or nearer to the consumer. In this emerging, more distributed energy system, customers may also be generators of the power they consume, they may have on-site storage for all or part of their demand, and buildings can even become virtual power plants by generating excess electricity that can be shared with others in need of that energy. This empirically straightforward approach that is technically feasible, economically beneficial and widely available unfortunately faces enormous difficulties when put into practice. For example, in a Pittsburgh community three municipal buildings adjacent to each other – the volunteer fire department, public works garage and storage shed and emergency management service – cannot share a common battery storage installation or share the solar photovoltaic electricity generated on three of the four roofs because a “public way” divides the space, and the buildings are wired to three different distribution grids, but not to each other. The cost to re-wire was more than the cost of installing all of the solar arrays! There is no standard interconnection protocol, and no tariff that fairly allocates costs and benefits. Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings are technically feasible.[i],[ii] We need to clear the regulatory hurdles to expand deployment to make buildings perform as virtual power plants.
Manufacturers and large-scale energy users explore the increasing benefits of co-generation, combined heat and power operations, and on-site storage. New high energy intensity operations like data centers and AI operations could benefit from co-locating efficient power generation on site and piping excess heat to neighboring facilities in need of that heat.[iii] A new regulatory system that accommodates customer generation can accelerate the necessary large- scale advance of renewable energy systems. However, there are few models for regulatory interface among producers and users of steam plus electricity, or waste heat and power. Such arrangements usually involve complicated business negotiations and are unique to each project. If distributed energy systems are to become mainstream and accessible to a multitude of energy system configurations, a regulatory system that defines the relationships and possibly new utility services and functions can expedite and streamline such transactions.
Major existing regulatory and institutional barriers
The regulatory system has accumulated policies and practices over decades, proving resistant to change even as technology advances have accelerated.[iv] The most significant regulatory and institutional barriers to modernization include:
Policy fragmentationacross jurisdictions. Federal, state, and local jurisdictions have differing and sometimes conflicting requirements making national markets difficult to pursue. To correct policy fragmentation, we need more standardization of methods and processes in a systems-oriented approach to regulatory infrastructure modernization.
Permitting complexity. Multiple agencies require differing and overlapping permit requirements, poorly sequenced with no clear path among multiple authorities. Grid integration challenges face transmission and distribution capacity constraints, as well as interconnection and Regional Transmission Organization [AW1] market rules, that pose barriers to renewable energy implementation, in modern utility operations, and impede net-zero greenhouse gas emissions outcomes.
Grid integration challenges. Utility systems have capacity constraints as well as a lack of interconnection infrastructure to support “two-way traffic” among customer/generators with or without on-site storage.
Lack of uniformly recognized guidelinesfor RECs. There is nostandard framework for defining Renewable Energy Certification (REC) credits that track and verify demand reduction or customer renewable energy generation across jurisdictions. Different states, and sometimes different utilities within states, have differing definitions, pricing and verification methods applied to RECs.
Erratic and unstable incentives. Production tax credits, investment tax credits, subsidies, land use allocations for federal land are subject to change with budget cycles unless established in law. The unstable incentives send the wrong pricing signals to the economy and foster inefficient choices for decades, impeding the progress to market transformation and decarbonization.
The current electricity system was designed for one-way flow of electricity from central power generation stations to distant residential, commercial and industrial customers. Now, several categories of customers also have the opportunity to generate electricity, and send it back into the electric grid. The electricity system, and the rules that govern it , are not designed for this two-way travel of electrons. In addition, standard interconnection procedures are needed for 1) virtual community power plants with or without storage; 2) standards regarding energy storage, steam/heat distribution or sale from combined heat and power operations, whether by a utility or a non-regulated entity; and 3) demand side management tied to time of use cost savings.[v] The integration of such services into the electric grid would benefit from innovations in communication technology and AI for real-time synchronization of both supply and demand side resources over daily and seasonal cycles.[vi] Many states have explored various approaches to regulatory incentives for renewable energy which provides a good place to begin to assemble the best practices across the country.[vii]
Opportunity for legislative action on national energy policy:
Three federal legislative initiatives will be pending over the next two years and could be legislative vehicles for the adoption of a national energy policy:
Reauthorization of Tax Reform Act of 2017
Regulatory Modernization and Permitting (especially shortening timelines)
Funding decarbonization and electrification initiatives from the Inflation Reduction Act
Budget authorization for programs under the Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Updating a National Energy Policy to address the urgency of climate action as well as the complexity imposed by the accumulated regulatory fabric of past decades offers a unique opportunity to a new Administration. It is important for the next President to address a forward-looking energy policy that empowers and accelerates the critically necessary modernization of the energy system. Every citizen is affected every day by how cost-efficient, safe and reliable the energy system serves daily needs. Resolving the regulatory quagmire will pave the way for a clean and sustainable energy future.
[iv] Seetharaman, Krishna Moorthy, Nitin Patwa, Saravanan, and Yash Gupta. Breaking barriers in deployment of renewable energy. Heliyon 5 (2019) e01166. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019. e01166
[v] G. Olabi, Khaled Alsaid, Khaled Obaideen, Mohammad Ali Abdelkareem, Hegazy Rezek, Tabbi Wilberforce, Hussein M. Maghrabi, Enas Taha Sayed. Renewable Energy Systems: Comparisons, challenges and barriers, sustainability indicators, and the contribution to UN sustainable development goals. International Journal of Thermofluids. 20(2023) 100498. www.sciencedirect.com/journal/international-journal-of-thermofluids
[iii] North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), Electricity Supply and Demand Data, 2023; Energy Information Administration (EIA) Monthly Energy Review; National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Pathways to 100% Clean Electricity, 2022. Note that electricity demand includes transmission losses and direct use. https://www.energy.gov/policy/articles/clean-energy-resources-meet-data-center-electricity-demand Accessed September 20, 2024.
the Black Appalachian Coalition partnering with the Ohio River Valley Institute is continuing the Petrochemical Lunch & Learn Series in 2024. Archbishop Marcia Dinkins and Patricia DeMarco have collaborated in producing this series taking a deep dive in 2024 connecting the health of people with the health of the environment. We recognize that too many front line communities experience daily conditions of air, water and land pollution that seriously deteriorate the health of people, especially children and the elderly. We also recognize that the mainstream systems for health care often do not reach communities of color living in the shadow of industrial facilities.
This series of webinars proposes to arm people who live and work with frontline communities with information, resources and tools to understand the situations they face. We hope to provide connection by sharing lived experiences from people who have food solutions and are moving forward.
We believe that health is a human right, not a privilege for those who can buy enough health insurance. We believe that to have healthy people we must have clean air and water, land that provides safe, fresh food accessible to everybody, and free of contamination. We are working together to build connections among communities with common problems from the Appalachian region, to the Gulf South, to the industrial East Coast. We have a common vision of a better future we can build together.
We depend on the living Earth for fresh water, clean air fertile ground and the wonderful array of living things in the interconnected Web of Life, of which humans are but one part. If we preserve our Mother Earth, we will have all we need to survive and to thrive for generations and generations.
2024 Petrochemical Lunch & Learn: Your Health and Your Environment Production
Archbishop Marcia Dinkins- Convenor and Welcome
Ben Hunkler- Ohio River Valley Institute -Technical support and evaluation surveys
Patricia DeMarco, Ph.D. – Research and Background
Kidest Gebre- BLAC Fellow – Communication and Coordination
Esther Baldwin- BLAC Fellow – Organizing and Support
The 2024 Petrochemical Lunch & Learn Series addressed these topics:
1. Health is a Human Right Feb 21, 2024 explored the connection between people and the environment; every person has the right to breathe clean air, have safe water and freedom from pollution
2. Air Pollution March 21, 2024- sources, health harms and mitigation
3. Water is Life– April 18, 2024 water pollution, health harms and mitigation
4. The Land Beneath Our Feet– May 16, 2024- abandoned mined lands, abandoned oil and gas wells- health effects, amelioration and reclamation
5. Forever Plastics- Everlasting Poisons June 20, 2024 Addressed plastics in our everyday life, avoiding and substitutes
6 When Disaster Strikes– Protecting Vulnerable Populations August 15, 2024
7. Environmental Justice and Building a Clean Energy Economy Sept. 19, 2024
8. Healthy Mothers and Children in a Healthy World Oct. 31, 2024
9. Action Strategy- November 21, 2024. Mobilizing and empowering people to hold polluters accountable. Freedom to Breathe Campaign
The programs reached over 1,500 registered attendees from 28 states and three countries. Clearly, there is much work yet to do in bringing frontline communities into a greater state of awareness and empowerment to take action against the chronic and damaging pollution that has become an accepted part of industrial might. This cannot be contiued at the expense of the health of millions of people exposed to toxic materials exposure through contaminated air, land and water.
As we look toward 2025, we will focus on moving from awareness to action. We will harness the power of informed citizens to hold the polluters accountable. BLAC launched the Right to Breathe Campaign at the end of this series. This will carry forward the momentum for health as a human right into the next year.
It has been my honor to be involved with this highly impactful series of programs. Archbishop Marcia Dinkins has inspired many discussions and brought hope to people enduring situations that cannot be considered normal and right, sometimes for generations. Ben Hunkler of the Ohio Valley Research Institute has kept the whole operation operating technically smoothly and has assembled and added to the resources in the Petrochemical Lunch & Learn Toolkit.
Earth Day 2024 – A reflection from Earth Day in 1970
by Patricia DeMarco
This Earth Day 2024 places a spotlight on plastic – a man-made counterpoint to the wonders of the natural world. Plastic brought apparent convenience and inexpensive goods to America, but the consequences resonate for hundreds of years in global pollution from often toxic synthetic materials. The shared sense that the living world has intrinsic value critical to the health of all interconnected living beings gave common ground in the first Earth Day in 1970, but has been eroded and even derided today.
If people are to thrive together on a finite planet, we must adjust our consumption patterns to be more sustainable. We must restore the central value of preserving the health of the environment- air, water and land that support all of the ecosystem services we depend on. Manufacturers accountability legislation has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Jeff Merkley as The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2021. We can start by passing this important initiative .
For more information and a fuller argument for Breaking Free From Plastic in our lives, download the full paper:
There is no longer a national bipartisan consensus for the value of environmental and climate policy.
Three Existential Crises: Global warming, global biodiversity loss; global pollution
Global Pollution- Plastic Everywhere!
System Solutions:
Accelerate the transformation to a renewable energy resource system.
Regenerative agriculture and restorative land use
Circular Materials management from non-fossil feedstocks
Call to Action:Sustainability as a Goal
First, manufacturers must be held accountable: Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2021
Second, Test for health effects before commercial production.
Third, educate chemists, engineers and industrial manufacturers about living systems.
Finally, be an active citizen. We can all act as empowered consumers. Americans discard 33.6 million tons of plastic a year average of 286 pounds of waste per person per year. Use your consumer power more wisely:
Refuse-single-use items
Reduce– Buy in bulk, substitute recyclable and non-toxic materials for non-recyclable
Recycle– know the rules in your area and separate clean items
Rot– compost food waste and organic material
Use your voice as an engaged citizen. Advocate for policies that will address these issues directly in your community, in your state legislature and with your Congressional Senators and Representatives. Your vote is your voice, and you have a responsibility as a citizen to hold the people who purport to represent you to account. Apathy is our enemy.
On this Earth Day 2024, I savor the beauty of the world around me now, and I pray again in my old age for the surge of care and concern for the Living Earth and for our future that will override partisan politics and corporate greed.
This is a pivotal year in many ways, especially in the urgent need to make the policy U-turn from an extractive to a regenerative economy. Without the restructuring of our economy, and indeed our civilization, away from fossil fuel combustion within the next five or six years, the climate tipping point may be irreversibly crossed. 2023 was the hottest year in recorded history, with many regions experiencing unlivable conditions for at least part of this year. https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2023-hottest-year-record Conditions will only worsen if we continue the slow walk on climate action.
Engaged and informed citizen action has never been more important.
Growing from the Petrochemical Lunch and Learn Series of 2023, we saw great interest in further exploration of environmental-related health harms and how to address and prevent them. I am partnered with the Black Appalachian Coalition (BLAC) and with the Ohio River Valley Institute to dive deeper into the connection between environmental pollution and our health. https://blackappalachiancoalition.org/ Our first sessions of the series are:
February 15 – Health Is a Human Right
March 21 – Air Pollution: Sources, Health Harms, and Mitigation
April 18 – Water is Life
May 16 – The Land Beneath Our Feet
This series of workshops empowers people with information and guidance for action, especially in communities affected by petrochemical and extractive industries. A healthy environment is necessary for healthy people; it is a human right for people to have clean air, water, and access to health care.
I have ended my term as an elected official on December 31st 2023., and I have been appointed to the Forest Hills Community Alliance, the community development corporation for Forest HIlls. To structure and organize my consulting activities, I have joined The Main Street Associates in Braddock as a Principal Associate.https://www.themainst.org Work here includes developing Community Benefit Plans and Agreements required by grant recipients under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. I have a focus on the regulatory infrastructure necessary to promote and enable renewable energy systems to thrive in PA. Shifting from a central fossil fueled power station with distant customers must give way to a Distributed Energy System. We are working to build a shared prosperity for our communities.
I continue writing as a Pittsburgh centered author. ReImagine Appalachia- Healing the Land and Empowering the People is In Press now. I have two new writing projects. I am collecting stories and resources to develop the story of the Mon Valley- its past and its future as a journey from the industrial extractive era to the clean manufacturing era. With the passing of my Aunt Rosa, I received the mantle of Matriarch of our Family. With this honor, I will be collecting the multi-generational story of our family from the mountains of Campolieto Campobasso in the Abruzzi region of Italy to the interwoven branches across America.
This will be a year of challenges and trials. Our country seems painfully divided and polarized. But we can come together as a people affirming what is good and true in our culture; learning and sharing with those who bring tradition and wisdom to bear on our common problems, and restore the attribute of treating each person politely with dignity and respect. Without justice, there is no peace. Without compassion, there is no healing. We can build a shared prosperity, a better future, if we work together and respect the laws of Nature as a guide to our way forward.
Archbishop Marcia Dinkins, founder and leader of the Black Appalachia Caucus, Patricia DeMarco, with ReImagine Appalachia, Ben Hunkler of the Ohio River Valley Institute have come together to present a five-part webinar series- “Petrochemical Lunch and Learn.” We hope to give people the information they need and some guidance and direction for responding to the climate crisis and the global pollution associated with burning fossil fuels. This informational series is designed to empower people, especially people of color who are most likely to experience the environmental, health and economic harms from proximity to petrochemical facilities. We will discuss how the petrochemical industry came to be such an integral part of our lives, how we can reduce dependence on burning fossil fuels, and how we can build a resilient, equitable and shared prosperity as we move toward a bio-based economy that can be sustained.
May 25, 2023 Session I: Overview: the sources and uses of petrochemicals; the history of the petrochemicals industry; how we can move away from fossil fuels and some of the environmental and social justice issues associated with petrochemical extraction, transportation and use.
May 25, 2023 Session I Overview slide presentation is here:
June 22, 2023 Session II: Health Harms– This session explains how petrochemical industry pollution of air water and land affects our health; and some of the environmental justice issues that result from petrochemical industry operations. Presentation by Patricia DeMarco is here :
July 27, 2023 Session III: What We Can Control. Patricia DeMarco will be joined by experts from Women for a Healthy Environment for practical things you can do to protect your exposure to petrochemical health harms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8e8fUSzWeM
August 25, 2023. Session IV. Empowering Independence from Petrochemicals- Better Choices. Building a fossil-free future: developing renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, recycling, and sustainable design.
September 28, 2023. Empowering Independence from Petrochemicals. Call To Action We end the 2023 Petrochemical Lunch & Learn series with a Call to Action for communities, for individuals, and of all concerned about having a healthier, more robust shared prosperity. The presentation is here:
This series has Brough people together across the United States from communities suffering long years, decades from the silent and slow toxic suffusion of pollution of air, water and land from petrochemical operations.
We continue this series in 2024 with a deep dive into the health harms of the petrochemical industry. See Petrochemical Lunch & Learn 2024: Your Health and Your Environment.
I spent some time this week with a group of students from the Carnegie Mellon University Urban Systems Studio and the North Braddock Residents For Our Future thinking together about the Past, Present and Future of the Edgar Thompson Steel Plant. It was a remarkable conversation, because the students reconstructed the history of this industrial operation from archives and historic records but wanted to include the lived experience of the people from the community. As the community conversation progressed, I began to reflect that we are once again at a major inflection point in the history of this place.
The Edgar Thompson Steel plant has been in operation since 1875, originally owned by Carnegie Steel Company. Generations of people have lived in the communities surrounding this 200-acre industrial site. At first, they were the workers, mostly immigrants who walked from homes on the hillsides and streets that bordered the plant to take their shifts. The Edgar Thompson plant was the site of the Battle of Homestead in 1982 when workers went on strike for better wages and working conditions. Carnegie famously broke the strike with Pinkerton Guards and scab workers. But the legacy of organizing and workers challenging managers for more equitable treatment stands as a hallmark in the struggle for workers’ rights. Even as they were reaping tremendous profits, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick successfully suppressed the movement for more equitable treatment of workers.[i] They treated workers as units of production to be paid as little as possible to maximize the profit margin. This industry has been the epitome of the extractive industry era that supported the Industrial Revolution.
Is there a better way forward for the future?
The Braddock Residents for Our Future believe there is. When invited to add their ideas to the scenario for the future of the Edgar Thompson Works site, several expressed the apprehension that US Steel would leave, and walk away from the mess that local taxpayers would have to clean up. Others were concerned that the operation could be taken over by an even less responsible foreign operator and conditions could become even worse. But several people thought about converting the area to farmed land, or to place a solar array with pollinator-friendly ground cover and beehives on the site to power the surrounding communities. Some thought there would be a good space for “green steel” instead. The possibility for non-polluting industries emerged as inquiries.
I felt that a pebble had been dropped in a still pool of despair and was now sending out ripples of hope. U.S. Steel ultimately owns this land, but perhaps there will be a moment of enlightenment with the catalyst of new federal dollars and programs to allow a new concept for industrial development to emerge. A new industrial operating system that includes community benefit agreements to build truly shared prosperity. A way forward that moves away from the extractive industries as a base of operation and adopts a system based on recovery of resources. Steel is ideally suited to a recovery and reshape operation. I thank the students of the CMU Urban Systems Studio for opening this avenue for imagination. Without a vision, nothing changes, but with a new vision, inspired innovation follows. If we are to achieve a vision for manufacturing based on “Made in America” it will be important to restructure the process. We cannot continue to use fossil fuels to power production- we need to look at technologies such as direct reduction using hydrogen from renewable resources to support manufacturing.[i]
Beyond looking at non-fossil fueled technologies, we need to examine the entire approach to generating economic activity. The process of producing inexpensive goods to be replaced frequently, with designed obsolescence, is inherently wasteful. To thrive into the future, we can return to a society that values durability, high quality and lasting usefulness, instead of the immediate gratification of convenience and buying things designed to be discarded. Made in America can be “Made to last.” It can be a hallmark of quality and legacy.
Patricia DeMarco Ph.D. 