Here in Pittsburgh in the first weeks of April, though the air is chilly now, this week follows five days of temperatures above 65 degrees. Blossoms not usually emergent until May are in full flower- violets, redbud trees, magnolia trees…and the daffodills and hyacinths have wilted from being so warm. As I had opened the windows a bit, i woke early to listen for the dawn chorus of birdsong I have always associated with the coming of Spring. There were several distinct songbirds- a few robins, a cardinal or two, a flicker, and American song sparrow, a Carolina wren. But the joyous chorus of many many birds greeting the dawn together is no more.
The harbingers of our fate call out in silences once filled with music. The unseen wonders lost. I take the occasion of this Earth Day theme “Our Power, Our Planet” to emphasize again the fact of our existence: we depend on the gifts of the living Earth. Our survival, our life support system comes from the solar power and ecosystem services of the interconnected web of life. The interactions between the living and mineral and inanimate parts of the planet shape our existence, and as humans we have developed the power to shape, re-shape and even destroy the living systems we depend on.
I reflected on our moral obligation to preserve these gifts of the living Earth for our children and those who follow.
Thanks to Jim Lenkner for the video recording and editing.
As you consider your own obligation to our living Earth and to the children among us and of the future, seek to live lightly on this earth, being judicious in how much of the world’s resources we use daily.
Uee your voice to advocate for preserving natural places and pulcic parks, refuges and oceans.
Engage in your own community to keep the green spaces, provide access to nature, and plant food and flowers instead of chemically supported lawn.
Remember to celebrate the joy of the natural world. We are more alike as human creatures than different in culture, religion, gender, or political persuasion. Find the common humanity across these barriers. Live in harmony with Nature.
In consideration of Women’s History Month, I am reflecting on Rachel Carson and her message of precaution in protecting the living earth.
Rachel Carson’s challenge. Rachel Carson lived and wrote in a time before pollution was regulated at the federal level. Her work at the Bureau of Fisheries and in the Fish and Wildlife service documented the value of preserving natural places, enshrined in the National Wildlife Refuges and in the Endangered Species Act. Rachel Carson advocated for preserving all the parts of natural ecosystems and using the tools of natural systems for pest control and resource management. She wrote often of the need to take precaution in the broadscale dispersion of man-made chemicals. She wrote, in the formal language of the 1950s, of the trend of our society towards destruction:
Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world. Rachel Carson. Speech on receiving the John Burrows Medal. April 1952.[i]
This describes the condition we face today. We see all around us the cumulative effects of pollution from burning fossil fuels to plastic waste, and forever chemicals created to control pests or for enhancements like “no-stick” pans. Rachel Carson raised concerns about the chemical stew resulting from the accumulation of materials from multiple sources and through concentration up the food chain. She documented how materials introduced into the environment migrate to unintended locations through the action of wind and water. Silent Springwas all about taking caution.[ii]
But we have not taken caution. We have conducted a massive experiment upon ourselves and our children with no controls, and no anticipation of how to redress the harm. Rachel Carson perceived this potential for harm long before the voluminous scientific documentation of health harms of pollution mounted in evidence.[iii] She wrote from a deep knowledge of the delicate intricacies of the interconnected web of life. She knew in her bones of the absolute dependence of humankind upon the smooth functioning of the ecosystems that provide fresh water, oxygen-rich air and fertile ground. Our life support system depends on these natural systems, evolved over millennia, and stable for thousands of years. But that stability also depends on respecting the laws of nature and preserving the living systems that sustain us.[iv]
The regulatory approach to controlling pollution has rested on the concept of mitigating risk to the public and protecting the quality of air water and land from contamination. The level of total risk is defined as the combination of inherent hazard, or how toxic a substance is to living plants, animals and humans, and the amount of exposure.
RISK = {HAZARD X EXPOSURE}
Consequences: total toxic emissions and health harms. In spite of the voluminous regulations, pollution is increasing not only in the US but globally. Because dispersion by wind and water makes it impossible to isolate contaminants to a specific location, contamination crosses all political boundaries. Even as Rachel Carson pointed out so many years ago, we now see contamination worldwide. The public health implications of this proliferation of toxic contaminants are impossible to escape. (See full article for details.)
Although environmental regulation has improved the quality of air and water overall since before enacting the regulations under the EPA, the results have not kept up with the challenges of modern industrial chemical contamination, nor have they prevented the effects of accumulation of man-made chemicals in the environment. The expectation and complaints from industry that environmental regulation hurts the economy has not been documented. In fact, economic growth has continued even as environmental controls have been enacted and enforced.
De-construction of environmental protections. Today we see the unravelling of the complex tapestry of regulatory controls on pollution, from Executive Orders granting absolution to 41 industries from emission constraints to laws rescinding critical portions of the Clean Air Act.[ii] The EPA under the Trump Administration has rescinded 31 regulations that protect water, air and land from industrial pollution and chemical contamination, challenging Safe Drinking Water and Clean Water Act requirements, and curtailing enforcement actions. Rulemaking to control forever chemicals (PFAS) has been delayed or abandoned. The Supreme Court has removed the science-based expert authority of regulatory agencies requiring a strict and narrow interpretation of authorizations stated in the enabling legislation. The EPA revoked the Endangerment Finding of 2009 which put greenhouse gas emissions control under the Clean Air Act, effectively eliminating climate action controls. The EPA has also declared that costs of health harms and deaths from pollution will no longer be calculated in the analysis of regulatory action on air emissions. Challenges to these actions have had some success in federal courts, including the declaration that rescinding congressionally approved grants for renewable energy are illegal.
RebuildEnvironmental Protection with Regenerative Thinking. The long-term implications of these policy changes alarm environmental organizations and people concerned with the health of communities who are looking toward a change of administration to correct the harms. But, at this point, simply reversing the actions taken so far will not address the underlying issues. Of all the environmental regulations adopted to date, only the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 addresses the concept of designing to prevent pollution and encouraging recycling. We can take lessons from the regulatory approach of the last 56 years and improve the outcome going forward. This is the opportunity to move our system of laws and regulations through a transformation from an extractive fossil-based economy to a regenerative renewable resourced economy. There are at least five elements to this process.
1. REACH: The first lesson would be to adopt the precautionary principle as the basis for evaluating the introduction of new man-made materials into large scale production.
2. Green Chemistry: Second, adopt a regulatory framework that emphasizes reduction or elimination of the inherent hazard, rather than computing the “safe” amount of toxicity for individual contaminants.
3. Empower Renewable Resources. Third, adopt the regulatory infrastructure to empower distributed renewable energy systems.
4. Heal damaged lands. Beyond preventing future pollution and damage, lies the responsibility to repair the scars and harms of legacy industries.
5. Remove fossil industry subsidies. The federal subsidies currently lavished on the fossil extractive industries can be shifted directly to fund the sustainable energy system.
A shared prosperity. It is time for bold action. It is time to recognize that the laws of nature are not negotiable, nor can they be rescinded by executive order or wishful thinking. The condition of our life support system requires both reduction in the levels and types of pollution as well as strong support for the known and available technical solutions. Burning fossil resources as the base for the economy drives the global warming that will make the planet uninhabitable to life as we know it.[i] By creating a new regulatory framework based on regenerative thinking and protection for our life support system, we can establish the conditions for a shared prosperity and sustainable growth within the constraints of our living earth.Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth shall find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. Rachel Carson.
This year has seen so many long days of cold harsh reality crashing through the optimism and hope of the last two years. From the vision from ReImagine Appalachia to the many responses to the Community Change grants and the burst of enthusiasm for what was supposed to be a stable ten -year commitment to renewable energy support all had the rug pulled out from under them. The Trump flurry of Executive Orders, rescissions and retractions of approved funds, even grants under contract has sent shock waves through one community after another. The deliberate cruelty with which federal assistance for disasters has been withheld or retracted, sometimes based on partisan vindictiveness, stands with little challenge. Now comes the gleeful revoking of the Endangerment Finding that supported EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, and point source pollution from power plants, factories and fossil extractive industries.[1]We are numb. Stunned into a shocked silence.
Well, the time for stunned inaction is over. The America built on immigrant blood, sweat and tears, the America striving toward shared prosperity and a more just, equitable and inclusive future, the America of hope, compassion and joy must rise up again. We who believe in a government of the People, by the People and FOR THE PEOPLE must stand up and take back what is good and right as our responsibility and our duty. We know that the science supporting the need to control greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels gives a short and closing window of timing for effective action.
This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution.
Luthi, D., et al.. 2008; Etheridge, D.M., et al. 2010; Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record. Find out more about ice cores (external site).
We dare to believe that excellent education for all makes stronger citizens and a stronger economy. We insist that the health and well-being of all people depend on access to health care for everyone. We know that to have healthy people we depend on clean water, fresh air and fertile ground as well as the vast number of species that provide our life support system. It is our duty to protect and strengthen the laws and regulations that control and prevent the massive pollution that has become the hallmark of modern civilization. It is time for an effective national law on Climate Change.
No longer can we tolerate sweeping the climate issue to the side, whispering about it in closed enclaves. We must no longer tallow climate action to be disparaged as “woke” or succumbing to the “Climate is a hoax” dogma issuing from Trump and his minions. The fossil industries who bought this President are bringing down our entire civilization.[2]These multi-national corporations have allegiance to no country, and certainly see no value in preserving humanity or any part of the natural world. Next quarter profits are their only metric. And if we look to the fate of our grandchildren, twenty years hence, the corporations do not care. They have no children. They do not breathe air or drink fresh water. They do not bleed in war. They do not get illnesses from their filthy enterprises. The stock market is soaring. The GDP is fine, what is our problem?
We need to focus on the fundamental systems that support a better future for all of us. That means we must address the unjust and skewed wealth distribution in our country. It is not a viable situation for the top 1% of people to control 86% of the wealth while the lowest 50% control less than 15%.[3] The frozen federal minimum wage at $7.25/hour combined with a systematic attack on unions and worker organizing has killed the middle class.[4] The Tax Reform Act of 1986 under Ronald Regan and the “Big Beautiful Budget Bill” of Trump have combined to increase the disparity in wealth distribution. Money is the heart of this evil. Unfettered capitalism feeds greed. And greed kills. Policies that demonize equity, inclusion, immigrants, and dignity to any outside the cult of wealth are destroying the best of what made America a great country. Now ripping away the Endangerment Finding assures the destruction of our life support system:clean air, safe drinking water, fertile ground and the millions of species that constitute the great Web of Life, of which humans are but one part.
Climate must be on the agenda for the Mid-term Elections. Rescinding the Endangerment Finding does not rescind the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. It just cuts out the ability of our government to move in a more positive and healthy direction. We can thrive without fossil fuels. But we cannot even survive in a planet warmed above the range of viability for all living things…including humans. We cannot have healthy, thriving people without a healthy thriving environment. We are facing our own extinction. It is time to ACT!
Adopt a National Energy Act for Climate Resilience. We must recognize that the energy system is in the midst of a critically necessary transformation away from a fossil resource -based system that moves from extraction to production to trash. The renewable resource based, circular materials and energy management system is emerging worldwide, in spite of all U.S. efforts to stifle its progress. We must boldly examine the regulatory infrastructure that can support a distributed energy system and a circular materials management system. The laws and regulations governing utilities are designed for one way flow of power from central power stations to customers distant and connected by wires. The emerging energy system is based on renewable resources. A distributed energy system accommodates multiple sources of electricity generation from net zero buildings that sometimes produce more energy than they need to microgrids linked with long duration battery storage systems and interconnected with load management software that balances loads and resources. Customers generate some or all of their own power, from solar PV on their roofs and car batteries in their garages, and utilities struggle to accommodate two-way flows. Many large customers can also generate all of their own power with dedicated systems linked to their unique demands, and drop out of the grid altogether. We need to examine an update to the laws and regulations governing the production and exchange of power to address the reality of a shifting energy system. A distributed energy system powered by renewable resources can sustain a better future. We need a regulatory infrastructure that enables this transformation in law.
The laws of nature are not negotiable. As we increase the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the planet will continue to warm. That is just physics. Trump may try to erase Black History. He has reversed decades of policy supporting immigration as America the melting pot. He has re-aligned alliances and trade agreements. He can eliminate public education and limit health care and benefits. BUT he has no power to change the laws of atmospheric physics and chemistry. He has no power to control the response of living systems, including humans, to changes in the environment. He has no power to re-write the laws of Nature. We ignore these at our peril.
It is time to put our life support system on the agenda. It is time to protect our world for our children. We can live without luxury cars. We can live without plastics. We can live without gilded buildings. We cannot live without oxygen-rich fresh air, or clean water, or fertile ground that provides food. We cannot live without compassion and empathy for each other in communities of caring people. We cannot live without the ecosystems that support life on earth.
[3] Urban Institute calculations from the Survey of Financial Characteristics of Consumers 1962, the Survey of Changes in Family Finances 1963, and the Survey of Consumer Finances 1983–2022. Urban Institute. April 25, 2024. https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/
The EPA is currently holding public hearings on its proposed reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding and Vehicle Efficiency Standards that authorized action to curtail greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Eliminating this regulatory authority will nullify climate change actions to control emissions from power plants, vehicles and industrial operations. EPA is accepting comments until Sept 22,2025. Please consider filing a statement.
I sit in my sunroom at dawn this midsummer day listening to the insistent trill of the Carolina wren in the rose of Sharon bush just outside my door. The sight of Pasha Pussycat, safely behind the screen, is sending the apprehensive mother bird into a frenzy in fear of a threat to her nest in the niche above the doorway. It is natural for a creature to shriek at a threat in alarm and warning.As I attended Reclamation! the 2025 Black Appalachian Coalition Storytelling and Policy Summit July 17 to 20, 2025, I heard many people share their experiences and their fears for the impact of the cuts to so many services. I wonder why we all are not shrieking in alarm and warning at the “One Big Beautiful Budget Act” that was signed into law on July 4th this year.
The major cuts to health care and food support will cast millions of Americans into poverty and even death. The major beneficiaries of this OBBBA are corporations whose taxes fall from 35% to 21%, and individuals with net income over $400,000 per year. The budget is the best representation of policy. This budget codifies a shift in values away from standards that long defined America. Here, greed and privilege displace equal opportunity and shared prosperity.
We must restore trust in each other and rebuild confidence in the representative democracy system of governance:
We must restore the sense of dignity and respect for people regardless of their income level, race, gender, religion, or even political affiliation.
We must recognize our responsibility to engage as active citizens.
We must commit to preserving a future for our children, and care for today’s children.
We must face the reality of climate change. The laws of Nature are not negotiable.
We must raise our voices in protest. Every Congressional Representative is up for election in 2026. The time to weigh in with them is NOW!
We the People must take back the narrative of what this country is about. We do not judge our greatness by the number and fame of the billionaires but by how well the children, the elderly, the infirm and the poorest among us are doing. We can build a finer future that is people centered, not profit centered, and recognize that we live in a state of abundance. Shared prosperity will emerge when we shift our values to place priority on people above profits and planet health over the next quarter bottom line. This OBBBA makes a mockery of the message of the Statue of Liberty that has welcomed so many millions to our shores. Our diversity is our strength. We the People must raise our voices in moral outrage at what has become legal but is not right.
See the full article below. I welcome your thoughts.
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.
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.
The summer of 2018 goes down in my life history as the turning point in my fifteen-year fight with cancer. After being free of any disease from 2001 to 2017, I have faced two cancers in the last two years. Knowing that I have been living on borrowed time changed the direction of my life. In 2006, I left the corporate world, divorced from a destructive relationship, and came home to my roots as an environmental activist. I vowed to stop trying to be “successful” and wealthy, but to do work that has meaning and purpose for the future. I came home to Pittsburgh, to Rachel Carson, and to a life devoted to preserving the living earth. Now as my strength is waned through a 24 week regimen of chemotherapy, I find that my role has shifted once again from the strong voice, standing with raised fist to one who writes the words, and empowers others to speak.
After a decade of public activism, the message echoes back to me through my students, through my family, and through my community. I see the power of many voices joined in demands for clean air, fresh water and fertile ground. The hopeful vision of a future where people can make better choices for energy, food, and materials emerges one community at a time.
A life and death decision point acts as a catalyst to crystallize priorities. There is no time left to wait for others to act. When you have nothing to lose, there is no point to preserving proper dignity or protocol. And this is exactly the situation of the world we are living in today. We face a life and death decision point on global warming and global pollution, yet people still act as though the ponderous machinations of due
process will get us to a solution. But the laws of nature proceed without “due process.” Greenhouse gases accumulate; the atmosphere warms; the oceans acidify; glaciers and ice caps melt; storms intensify. People as well as plants and animals cannot adapt quickly to the intensity or speed of these changes. But, we can act much more effectively than is the case now if we act together, with common purpose and directed intent.
So in this tortured summer of 2018, I feel my strength wane, but I see the strong voices of my students- Eva Resnik-Day in the Fight for 100% renewable energy; Seth Bush coaching and empowering entrepreneurs and activists; Kacie Stewart taking a role in renewable energy in manufacturing with Epic Metals. I see young colleagues making a huge impact through film and media- Mark Dixon with Blue Lens, LLC documenting the movement and calling others to action; Kirsi Jansa making documentaries and pushing creativity in response to crises and becoming a new citizen activist; Maren Cook holding gatherings to keep the movement together; Matt Mehalik working for clean air through the Breathe Project; Mike Stout documenting the struggle of organized labor and the importance of democratic process through unions; Charlie McCollester, Wanda Guthrie, so, so many others raising the call to action. Jackie Dempsey and the Indivisible Forest Hills movement, mirroring a whole country of people taking politics seriously.
The human spirit is hard to quench. Re-defining aspirations to value preserving the living Earth as a critical need above profits in a monetary measure alone may take a generation. We have no time for gradual transitions. A crisis point is upon us, now, in this generation. We have tools at hand to solve the problems of climate change and global pollution. There is no longer time to reverse the trajectory toward a hotter drier planet, but action can still be effective to mitigate the worst of the effects and preserve viability for the next generation. This is not a technology problem- it is an ethical and moral challenge: Do we living today make decisions that preserve the option of life for the next generation? Or do we persist on a path of instant gratification and greed, heedless of known disastrous consequences of our actions?
Energy Transfer Corporation pipeline explodes days after installation in Beaver PA
Protestors arrested at PA Pipeline Task Force meeting
This is the time- our time- to face the existential crises of climate change and global pollution, especially from plastic. This is our time to take the actions needed to curtail fossil resource extraction and combustion. Climate change and environmental destruction must be on the central political agenda in every election, every race, every town hall. We who care about the future cannot stand silent while those in power continue to pretend there is a positive outcome for continuing on the fossil path. We will follow the dinosaurs into extinction if we continue burning their remains. It is time to place priority on the vital functions of the living Earth – the ecosystem services – embedded in the interconnected living systems on the surface of the earth. Instead of criminalizing those who stand to protect watersheds, wetlands, forests, farmland and refuges, we should be prosecuting those who rip fossil materials – oil, coal, fossil methane- from the depths of the earth. The 1837 laws that gave mineral rights superiority over surface rights continue to subsidize and destroy our life support system. The Pennsylvania laws that demand access to mineral “rights” over the objections and concerns of landowners and citizens, in violation of our own Constitution, need to be overturned. The federal law and regulations that made exemptions for natural extraction from deep shales legal in spite of environmental harms need to be overturned. It is time to place the health and safety of people and the living planet above the short-term profits of multi-national corporations.
VOTE in every election, every time! work to Get Out The Vote for candidates that stand for climate action and environmental justice. (There are MANY action groups!) Find a local action group here:https://350.org
I will be working to preserve our Living Earth every day for the rest of my life. My book, “Pathways to Our Sustainable Future” lays out the argument and tells some stories of success. I hope you will join me and tell me of your own journey.
Patricia DeMarco Ph.D. 