Will Ryan faces a half-dead (yet half-alive) ash tree deep in the woods of Tyler Arboretum and ties a plastic pill bottle around its trunk. Inside is a folded white paper dotted with tiny black specks that look like poppy seeds. He ties the bottle to the tree and takes off the cap. Those tiny
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At Re:Vision Architecture’s Manayunk headquarters, energy-saving features are everywhere. Exterior walls are carefully sealed and insulated to keep the building warmer in the winter. Windows and skylights admit plenty of sun, reducing the need for artificial lighting. Those same skylights and windows can be opened on warm days to flush hot air up and out
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The Philadelphia Energy Authority (PEA) manages green energy projects for the City and raises the money to make investments that will save electricity in the long run. The PEA is celebrating its first 10 years and looking forward to the next energy wins. Katie Bartolotta, the PEA’s vice president of policy and strategic partnerships, spoke
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Organizers with Philly Thrive and People’s Tech Project aren’t waiting for an artificial intelligence data center in the Bellwether District to be announced. In the deep freeze of February, the Point Breeze environmental justice advocacy group took to the sidewalks of Grays Ferry, knocking on 1,876 doors and speaking with nearly 500 people. The advocates
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Octavia Nash was back for more. She had joined a friend for a paddle on the Delaware River with Camden’s Center for Aquatic Sciences once before and returned for a free kayaking session at Pyne Poynt Park in mid-July, this time with her fiancée. “I like the peacefulness,” she says. “Oh my God, it’s like
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Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources is keeping an eye on Baltimore checkerspots. The once-common butterflies are in decline. They’re not rare enough to be endangered, but the state will be in a good position to step in if needed. In the Keystone State, no agency is tasked with ensuring their survival. The Pennsylvania Fish and
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The helicopter was worth a shot, Dave Fahnestock thought. The owner of Hands on the Earth Orchard in Lititz, Lancaster County, which sells apples and peaches at farmers markets in Clark Park, Rittenhouse Square and Bala Cynwyd, hoped the downdraft from the propellers would mix warmer air with the freezing air hugging the ground across
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The past three summers in Philadelphia have seen smoke drifting overhead, making for beautiful sunsets and, when it settles close to the ground, hazardous air. That smoke came from forest fires that burned thousands of miles away in the boreal forests of Canada. These woods cover 270 million hectares (or about one million square miles)
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When Grid visited the LandHealth Institute (LHI) nursery in May, community nursery operations lead Sara Mae Henke and native plant nursery associate Marcelino Smith were repotting hundreds of tiny bee balm plants from flats into pots to prepare them for sale. Behind them rose the arching end of a high tunnel greenhouse sheathed in plastic
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Ihad expected the logs, half-deflated basketballs, plastic bottles and other assorted urban debris when I tagged along with a crew from the Philadelphia Water Department tasked with cleaning out the Fairmount Dam fishway back in 2012. What I hadn’t expected was to see the workers pull out two flathead catfish the size of toddlers. The
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