Homebrew for the Holidays: Giving the gift of beer

In a craft-beer-driven city like Philadelphia, it’s little wonder that some of the most popular holiday gifts begin with water, malt, hops and yeast. If you plan to give a home-fermented creation, start early, says Nick Less, co-owner of Philly Homebrew Outlet (1447 N. American St.). Most beer styles can be completed in about a

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1 min read

Raising the Roof: Solar Schools Initiative unleashes the potential atop our schools — and inside them

Story by Ruth Heil, photos by Neal Santos.
As the founder of Solar States, a South Kensington-based solar energy consulting and installation company, Micah Gold-Markel knows something about tapping underutilized potential. When he looked at Philadelphia’s public schools, he saw plenty of it, both on the unadorned rooftops, and in the classrooms underneath them.

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5 mins read

Power Couple: Husband and wife team shine a light on sustainability

The Lighting Practice was responsible for the sculptural and environmental lighting of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.In 1981, when now husband-and-wife Rob and Helen Diemer graduated from Pennsylvania State University with degrees in architectural engineering, they were entering an industry that wasn’t all that concerned with energy conservation. But about a decade ago, things started to

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3 mins read

Air Patrol: City agency is on the front lines of the fight for clean air

photo courtesy of Flickr user techfunIf there’s a strange odor on your block, unidentified smoke billowing out of an industrial area, or a diesel truck idling for hours and filling the air with exhaust, who are you going to call? The city’s Air Management Services, that’s who. As the enforcers of city, state and federal

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1 min read

Clearing the Air: Council uses the law to defend clean air

Clean Air Council Executive Director Joseph Otis Minott, Esq.Ever since the Clean Air Act came into being in 1963, there have been forces trying to subvert it. Since 1967, the Clean Air Council (CAC) has been fighting back, relentlessly defending the tenets of the act on behalf of the citizens of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New

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1 min read