It would be nice to imagine that all the clothes in our closets and dressers — let alone the endless items lining the shelves of countless retail shops — spring forth fully formed. Or, if that fantasy goes too far, to at least believe that our clothing is manufactured with some level of respect for
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Over the course of a decade, Shireen Qadri learned the intricacies of Indian cooking from her mom, Safia. But when she started a family, she found that preparing the cuisine was too elaborate for everyday meals. Her mom had a solution: when Qadri and her husband, J.D. Walsh, visited Safia in Maryland, she would send
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Skeptics of the green energy movement have always asked: What do you do when there’s no sun for the solar panels and no breeze to stir the blades of the windmill, but you still need power? Batteries can store excess energy created when the conditions are favorable to be used for precisely those times —
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What are we doing to this planet, and what are we doing about what we’re doing to this planet? No writer’s body of work surpasses Elizabeth Kolbert’s to answer these questions. Kolbert has been a staff writer for The New Yorker for 25 years, documenting climate change with an unflinching eye. Her first book on
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It all began as one of Marques Davis’ self-described “quirky ideas.” In 2018, he decided that for the holidays he would make his loved ones a handmade gift: soap. But soapmaking, with its weeks-long production period, did not agree with Davis’ disposition, he says. “I like immediate gratification.” After what he calls his “soap fail,”
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The amount of electronic waste the U.S. produces — 6.9 million tons annually — is an overwhelming problem, but for Steve Figgatt, founder of the e-waste recycling business Sycamore International, it’s also a nearly limitless opportunity. Thirteen years ago Figgatt, 36, started the West Grove-based business — which now employs 73 people and processes 40,000
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It was matoke, a Ugandan spicy beef and banana stew, that inspired Dan Berger’s world spanning culinary exploration and a project that raised more than $250,000 to combat world hunger. Berger, 38, who works for global investment bank RBC Capital Markets in Center City, made the dish during the early lockdown stages of the pandemic
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It’s hard to know which battles to choose. We are confronted with such an overwhelming list of environmental problems (global warming, biodiversity loss, air pollution, environmental racism, sewage flooding into our rivers…) — not to mention all the interrelated social ills such as systemic racism, poverty and unabating gun violence — that we can excuse
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The venue for the Climate Mayoral Forum presented by Green Philly couldn’t have been more fitting. The auditorium of the Academy of Natural Sciences, home to decades of research about dwindling biodiversity and exhibits of extinct animals, was sweltering. The heat on this early April evening served as yet another reminder of how the seasons
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Traces of panic on the streets of Philadelphia. On my bike ride home from work I count no fewer than three people carrying cases of bottled water. Near Drexel’s campus I overhear a student who appears to be an undergrad saying she’s called four food delivery services before finally finding someone who could bring some
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