In the wake of Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House, I know many of you are feeling a deep sense of frustration and disillusionment. This election marks not just a setback for those committed to democratic values, but also a looming threat to environmental protections. It’s no secret that a second Trump administration
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My family and I have been meaning to take part in a nature program at Vernon Park in Germantown by the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford (TTF) Watershed Partnership for years, but up until recently, it’s never panned out. It was never for a shortage of events—they’ve hosted a wealth of volunteer work days, nature walks and other watershed
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Four new warehouses are setting up camp in Philadelphia, and clean air activists are concerned about the pollution of their vehicles. The four new sites include an Amazon facility in Southwest, a redevelopment of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in South Philly, a UPS site in the Northeast and a redevelopment of the Philadelphia
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I stood on the bank at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum in June and cast my green frog top lure out into an open patch of water amid the weeds knowing somewhere in there swam northern snakeheads. Twenty years ago, they probably didn’t. The northern snakehead, or Channa argus, hails from East
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I met up with my friend Robin Irizarry at the third base gate of Citizens Bank Park. We made it through security and strolled the first level. Like a lot of fans at the game, we were looking for something to eat. Unlike presumably everyone else, we were also looking for birds. I had been
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Here’s a nugget from The New York Times story “Extreme Summer,” published on July 20, 2021: “Summers in Boston have come to resemble 20th-century summers in New York. New York, similarly, has come to resemble Philadelphia, which in turn has become hotter than Washington, D.C., or Atlanta were only a few decades ago.” Climate change
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Last fall labor organizers at the National Audubon Society began asking non-managerial staff at the 116-year-old environmental organization whether they would like to form a union in partnership with Communications Workers of America (CWA). A majority of staff, including workers in Philadelphia, voted yes, but Audubon has yet to recognize the group as an entity
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San Francisco has its earthquakes and Miami has its hurricanes, but the disaster Philadelphia most often confronts is flooding. Flooding is the most common natural disaster in the country, with Pennsylvania experiencing the most flood occurrences of any of the 50 states. And climate change all but promises that the near future will be wetter,
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Straddling the border between Southwest Philadelphia and Delaware County, Mount Moriah Cemetery has long been one of my favorite places to observe wildlife. I turn up salamanders and snakes. I watch deer watch me before snorting in alarm and bounding away, white tails flashing. More than once a red fox has kept an eye on
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Along the long, winding roads of Glen Riddle, a small community close to Media in Delaware County, sits Glen Riddle Station Apartments, a 124-unit complex at the center of yet another Mariner East pipeline controversy. On May 26 more than 200 residents of Glen Riddle Station found themselves without water, and Pennsylvania State Police launched
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The heart of the summer is here, and so are hordes of spotted lanternflies. They’re probably sucking on plants outside your window right now. Outside you might step on one if the opportunity presents itself, and, like a lot of Philadelphians, you might go further in a quest to eliminate the invasive bugs. Over the
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