Jana Segal

While tending my desert garden, I became a sort of citizen scientist observing the impact of rising temperatures and declining rainfall in Tucson. That convinced me that we need to do everything we can to lessen the impact of climate change. I share my journey on Sustainable Living Tucson blog. That includes what I have learned about sustainable practices like water-harvesting and clean energy. I also directed a virtual production of my play, "Regeneration: The Tucson Story" that you can find on Youtube. I am currently the lead of Sustainable Tucson's Environmental Advocacy group and a member of the Water Committee. I attend the Pima Department of Environmental Quality's Green Infrastructure planning meetings as Sustainable Tucson's Water Ambassador. I also rally my friends on social media to become active too by posting Calls to Action from my blog Desktop Activist Tucson.

ACTIONS NEEDED BEFORE MONDAY MORNING on HB2111 and 3 Request to Speak items

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Legislative UPDATE from Sandy Bahr from the Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter

This week, the last week to hear bills in committee in the house of origin, is referred to as “hell week,” due to the super long agendas with long lists of bills and strike-everything amendments and the meetings that drag into the night. While there was time to hear a plethora of bad water bills in the Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee, there was no time to even consider ecological water. In fact, many good bills went in the dustbin this week — ecological water, voters’ bill of rights, Equal Rights Amendment, reversing the ban on bans of plastic bags, banning fracking, climate resolutions, and more. While these important bills are dead in their current form, the Sierra Club is not giving up and will continue to look for ways to amend them on to other bills and have our voices heard. Meanwhile, we will also focus on a few of the good ones that got through the first part of the process and on stopping the ones that roll back protections, suppress votes, and make it more difficult to qualify a citizen initiative.

Please send a message to your Representatives asking them to oppose HB2111.

HB2111 S/E water supply; adequacy; exemptions (Griffin) allows counties such as Cochise and Yuma that have adopted water adequacy provisions for subdivisions to rescind them unanimously. If they rescind them, they cannot readopt them for five years. This is likely to result in ever more harm to the San Pedro River due to excessive groundwater pumping and will weaken the limited protections for consumers.

If you are not sure who your legislators are, just use this Find My Legislator link and enter your address. To contact legislators, go to Members.

There are three bills being heard in the House Appropriations Committee Monday morning at 8 a.m. This is an opportunity to weigh in on Request to Speak and leave a comment that becomes part of the public record.

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Support HB 2395 to Save Local Recycling, the Environment, and Our Economy

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This has been a year of action for Sustainable Tucson. We committed to including an action with every educational meeting.

At our Recycling and Beyond meeting, we not only learned about the new rules for recycling and why they are important, but we also formed a Zero Plastic Waste team. Here is a recording of our first meeting. But it is really a working group. We already wrote and promoted the blog, “Lessons from Our Recycling Queen.” (I suggest everyone read and learn it. Our bad recycling is making it cost prohibitive to have a recycling program in Tucson.) We just finished drafting a one-sheet (two sides) about HB2395 – which repeals the law that makes it illegal for towns like Bisbee to ban plastic grocery bags and other packaging. The one-sheet will be included in attendees’ folders for Environmental Day at the Capitol and they will be handed to our state legislators.

Even if you can’t attend Environmental Day at the Capitol, you can still help out by e-mailing your state representatives and asking them to support HB2395.

Feel free to attach a link to the one-sheet to your e-mail:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L6LYwJBw640kMmrgZbVvgKG3TClm9R36/view?usp=sharing

And here is the link to the actual bill, HB2395, that repeals ARS 9-500.38 and 11-269.16:

https://bit.ly/2GD3LIO

To find out who your Representative is, just find your district and use that to look up your Rep.

If you haven’t already, you might wanna go ahead and sign up for Request to Speak. I will be posting opportunities to weigh in on this bill when it gets into committee.

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Join us for a day of action in Phoenix – Environmental Day at the Capitol

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Meeting with Sen. Farley
Environmental Day at the Capitol 2018

It all started at Environmental Day at the Capitol 2018… The Sierra Club had arranged for small group meetings with each of our state legislators. Those of us from district 9 got to meet with Sen. Farley and Rep. Friese. We were ushered into their offices where we were greeted warmly. After introductions, a few of us lobbied for upcoming bills – referring the legislators to one-sheets provided by the Sierra Club. At the end of each meeting, we thanked our hosts for their time. While shaking hands on the way out the door, I announced that I would be starting an advocacy group to support their efforts for the environment. That was the beginning of Sustainable Tucson’s environmental advocacy team!

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The Real Recycling 101

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After the city’s falsely named “Recycling 101” event turned out to be more of a budget meeting than a presentation on how to recycle, Sustainable Tucson hosted our own program, “Recycling and Beyond.” We stressed to Sherri Ludlam, Environmental Scientist in the Department of Environmental and General Services, that this time we wanted her to concentrate on the rules for recycling. Her chosen topic was “old and new challenges to Tucson’s recycling program.” One of the new challenges was that China wouldn’t be accepting all of our dirty recycling anymore because of the contamination. Contamination is all the trash that doesn’t belong in recycling – including plastic bags that jam up the machines. That same contamination is costing the company contracted to do our recycling truck loads of money. Our bad. Tucsonans put everything from dirty diapers to dead cats to Saguaros in our recycling cans. Sherri reminded us that there are actual people who sort through all that yucky trash. So don’t throw in anything that you wouldn’t want to find in your own recycling can.

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Celebrate Our Sustainable Future

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Sustainable Tucson invites you to our holiday party.

St Mark’s Presbyterian Church, Geneva Room,  3809 E 3rd St.
Tuesday, December. 11, 6-8:30 p.m. (Doors open at 5:30)

Share the bounty of the season at our holiday potluck. Non-alcoholic drinks provided by Sustainable Tucson. Save a dinosaur; bring your own flatware and glasses.

REASON TO CELEBRATE: If you’ve read the recent IPCC study on climate change, you might not think there is much to celebrate this holiday season. The idea that climate change is progressing faster than first predicted can be quite a jolt, even if you’re already working to fight it. But it could also be an opportunity to come together as a community to envision and create a better, more sustainable and resilient Tucson!

At this year’s holiday party, Sustainable Tucson will be celebrating the possibilities by recreating a festival atmosphere with street fair activities:

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