Donald Rumsfeld famously, or maybe infamously, once said, “[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
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South Philadelphia dad and Little League coach Alex Kaslowitz remembers watching the Phillies play at Veterans Stadium, one of the first to install artificial turf in 1970. Since then, as reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer, six former Phillies have died from a rare form of brain cancer linked to the turf they played on. “That
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For three days last summer, smoke drifted down from forest fires in the Canadian taiga, some of it shrouding 1800 North American Street, where volunteers were working on a climate justice mural. Mirroring the dramatic depiction of oil spills, deforestation and smog being painted on the 300-foot long wall, the very real smoky orange haze
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When the U.S. Department of Agriculture released an updated map of hardiness zones last November, gardeners and farmers in the Philadelphia region — and across much of the United States — found affirmation of the warmer weather they’ve been experiencing since the map’s last refresh in 2012. In just over 10 years, nearly half the
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In April, the Philadelphia Eagles scored a few days of positive publicity when quarterback Jalen Hurts donated $200,000 to install more than 300 air conditioning units in 10 Philly public schools. The problem the donation addressed is real; Philly’s ancient school buildings afflict our students with temperatures too hot to learn safely in our warming
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It’s right there in the name: global warming. Step outside and the air is thick, like you’re breathing steam. Walking is almost too much effort. You try to find shade, but the treeless sidewalk offers no refuge from the sun’s rays. At night you open the windows to let in a fresh breeze, but only
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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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Four years ago, Re:Dish CEO and founder, Caroline Vanderlip, set out with the goal of reducing the amount of plastic waste in the United States. The U.S. alone has produced 8.3 metric tons of plastics since 2018 and production is expected to triple by 2050, a report compiled by nonprofit ocean conservation organization Oceana shows.
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A dancing penguin. A googly-eyed amoeba. Psychedelic fonts amidst splashes of avocado, harvest gold, mod magenta. “Playing Dirty,” the Science History Institute’s latest outdoor exhibition, features the “bright colors and groovy graphics” — to borrow senior manager of exhibition projects and programming Christy Schneider’s words — you’d expect from the era of lava lamps and
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In his classroom at Lankenau High School, veteran teacher Matthew VanKouwenberg points out to his students the connection between average daily temperatures across Philadelphia and tree canopies, noting that the lack of tree cover can leave some neighborhoods — often poor, often majority-minority — overheated in summer. VanKouwenberg, who teaches chemistry and environmental science at
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