Mayor Cherelle Parker leads Philadelphia at a key point in the fight against climate change. By 2030 — that is, in a mere five years — the City hopes to have slashed municipal emissions in half and power municipal buildings entirely with renewable energy. If things go according to current sustainability plans, a Philadelphia whose
MoreNearly two years after the launch of the Philly Tree Plan, the City’s ambitious effort to reverse decades of urban canopy loss is still in its infancy. A $12 million U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant represents a significant step forward, but community advocates and public health leaders worry that progress isn’t moving quickly enough.
MoreSam Calisch has electrification bona fides. There’s the MIT engineering degree, the years spent in a lab tinkering with electromagnetic devices and his time on Capitol Hill as a scientist-turned-advocate, successfully campaigning for the inclusion of historic climate measures in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. So why is his new gig all about the humble
MoreThe dream is to electrify everything, and to do it now. The reality is that Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) serves 500,000 households, and shifting from one energy source to another is going to take time. So for those of us who can’t yet leave gas behind, PGW has EnergySense, a program designed to help customers
MoreThe year is 2050. On every street across the wide expanse of the United States, nearly every vehicle that goes by emits only the quiet whine of an electric motor. A few folks still ride by in antique, gas-powered cars, but in many places such vehicles are greatly outnumbered even by electric bikes. The houses
MoreIn 2020, members of POWER Interfaith, a grassroots social justice organization with a mission to “shine a light on broken systems,” organized to push PECO, Pennsylvania’s largest electric and gas utility, to incorporate long-term contracts for renewable energy into its Default Service Program (DSP). The DSP is essentially the company’s “house special,” and about 75%
MoreSeveral times a week, John Boyle, research director for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, rides the power of electricity to work. A resident of Edgewater Park, New Jersey, Boyle rides a foldable e-bike to the Beverly Rail Station, which he takes aboard NJ Transit’s River Line to Camden. If the weather is nice, he’ll
MoreBeing a mother is hard under the best of circumstances — now imagine caring for a toddler alone in the forest during an apocalypse set off by extreme flooding. That’s the arduous task Liv Vela takes on as she tries to survive in the wilderness of a futuristic United States with her 3-year-old son Milo
MoreI made the mistake of watching the presidential debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump on September 10. I had earlier decided that watching it was pointless; there is no question who I am voting for. And I am an early-to-bed kind of guy, so the next day I paid a price for
MoreFor years, the residents of Edmonston, Maryland, had needed help. Situated just outside Washington, D.C., the town of about 1,500 people, primarily Hispanic and Black, had flooded for four years in a row in the late 2000s. The issue wasn’t overflow from the Anacostia River that bisects the municipality, but rather its outdated and ineffective
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