PHILADELPHIA — Even though the Phillies fell far short of their goal to win the World Series in 2024, their home runs are impacting the city in a very green way. Home Runs for Trees, a 13-years-and-counting partnership between Asplundh, the Phillies organization and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), plants one tree in the Greater
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It was a muggy morning, on a midsummer Wednesday, and the fish weren’t biting. A dozen or so preteens kept dropping their baited lines into the water from a dock and pulling them out empty. Or often, tangled, requiring repeated assistance of nearby camp counselors. A tedious exercise? Perhaps. But just beneath the surface were
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The Schuylkill Center announced on Thursday, August 10, that it has protected 24 acres of its property from future development using a conservation easement. In March 2022 leaked memos revealed that the Schuylkill Center was exploring a sale of the land, known as the Boy Scout Tract from its history as a campsite for the
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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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At a recent investment industry conference, Tim Buckley, CEO of Vanguard, was asked about socially responsible, environmentally sustainable investing. “We’ve run out of time,” he jokingly claimed, uneasy about responding. According to climate activists like myself, Vanguard has “run out of time” to show the kind of leadership needed to avert the worst effects of
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A red-bellied turtle basking on a log next to a pocket of wetlands at Point Breeze on the Schuylkill River doesn’t know that it is threatened, legally speaking, or that its home is tiny compared to the once-expansive ecosystem that used to stretch far beyond its current territory. The controversy over a planned warehouse development
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In the 340 years since Philadelphia’s founding, the city’s landscape has constantly shifted, as waves of development and redevelopment shipped out with the old and in with the new. Unfortunately, on many occasions across the city, transitions went terribly wrong. Consider Logan Triangle, a 35-acre site in North Philadelphia where developers filled in a creek
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It’s hard to know which battles to choose. We are confronted with such an overwhelming list of environmental problems (global warming, biodiversity loss, air pollution, environmental racism, sewage flooding into our rivers…) — not to mention all the interrelated social ills such as systemic racism, poverty and unabating gun violence — that we can excuse
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The renovation of the Cobbs Creek Golf Course hit a small hurdle on May 10 as the Cobbs Creek Foundation sought approval from the Philadelphia Art Commission of the next phase of its construction, a pumphouse and reservoir for irrigating the golf course, with the commission asking the foundation to return at a future meeting
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On May 11 the EPA proposed carbon emissions standards limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. If adopted, the standards would reduce total carbon dioxide (CO2) by 617 million metric tons — the equivalent of reducing the annual emissions produced by 137 million passenger cars — through 2042. The rule would also reduce particulate emissions
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On April 15 the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education announced that it had parted ways with executive director Michael Weilbacher. Reached by Grid for comment, Weilbacher, who had run the organization since 2011, responded by email with a statement. “I am so proud of what the Schuylkill Center’s staff accomplished over the last 12 years
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