Around 200,000 ash trees stand in the city of Philadelphia’s watershed parks. But in the next five to 10 years, most will be gone—killed by the emerald ash borer, an invasive species of beetle that has destroyed tens of millions of American ash trees in the Midwest and Northeast since it arrived in Detroit from
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Everything is a mess. I need to remind myself, consistently, that I am strong enough to be part of cleaning it up. In a world that seems to be falling apart, I am experiencing many low moments. With the feeling of being trapped at home, I’ve decided to take a good look at the personal,
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On May 25, Christian Cooper, birder and member of the New York City Audubon Society’s Board of Directors, was birding in Central Park. He asked Amy Cooper (no relation) to follow the park rules by putting her dog on a leash and then recorded what happened next: Amy, who is white, called 911 to report
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Gardening quickly grew from a hobby to a passion for Pamia Coleman and Latiaynna Tabb. The friends founded the organization Black Girls With Green Thumbs (BGWGT) in 2016 after they’d spent a few years sharing their daily victories and obstacles with urban gardening via a joint Instagram account. The community-based organization focuses on education and
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For years, bicycle-advocacy organizations across the country and the world have supported a policy called Vision Zero as a push for safer streets for everyone. Emphasizing the five E’s of planning—engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation and enforcement—the Sweden-born safety policy has proven effective where implemented. Utilizing police departments for the enforcement part of Vision Zero has
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Thank you, Matthew George and Bria Howard of I ♥ Thy Hood, for interrupting the news cycle that produces fear, anger, despair and disbelief. You know what I’m talking about. Is it really possible that a pandemic hit and we are unable to organize ourselves nationally to combat it? It seems likely that hundreds of
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Photography By Rachael Warriner Graveyard Shift By Constance Garcia-Barrio If tombs are the clothes of the dead, as one poet said, permanent residents of cradle graves at The Woodlands Cemetery wear vivid garments indeed. Marble headstones, footstones and low sides form these graves while pansies, bleeding hearts, and other flowers bloom atop them and brim
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A lot of americans have a vague idea of where their water comes from, says Kayla Callender, a former participant in the Independence Seaport Museum’s River Ambassador program. “We take water for granted,” she says. “We assume it’s never going to run out.” The River Ambassadors program is bridging the disconnect between citizens and their
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On August 19, 2019, Matthew George decided he had enough of the litter lining Germantown’s streets. He created a GoFundMe campaign for a trash-can program he called “I ♥ Thy Hood.” He reached out to his neighbors in the hopes that he could raise enough money to buy 10 44-gallon trash cans for the neighborhood.
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