Illustration by Jameela Wahlgren End Family Incarceration by Erika Almiron When I was taken into custody at Berks County Residential Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania—for hugging women who had been unlawfully detained there for months with their children—I couldn’t believe it. As the executive director of Juntos, a community-led, Latino immigrant organization fighting for our human
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Illustration by Laura Weiszer A Plague of Plastic Bags by Phil Bresee Throughout much of 2015, negative stories and shortsighted opinion pieces on recycling dotted national and local media. The stories, including a particularly exasperating editorial by John Tierney in The New York Times, mostly stemmed from reports on the historic low-market values for
MoreYou may have read articles—perhaps even in Grid—touting biofuels as a viable source to meet our energy needs. However, the science of biofuels points to one conclusion: They just don’t work.
The key concept is energy return on investment. Agrifuels—fuels derived from monocrops like corn or sugar—barely produce more energy than it
Have you ever locked your bike to a tree? Did you know that every time you do this, you damage that tree? The tree’s bark serves as a layer of protection, just as your skin protects you. When you scrape off bark with a chain or lock, the tree becomes more susceptible to disease. It
MoreIn February, I joined the band Hoots and Hellmouth at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s (PASA) annual conference. More than once, I was asked if I was the group’s new bass player, or maybe their roadie. In fact, I’m the band’s farmer. It’s not a common title, but, when you work with a band
MoreWhen we look back on 2009, we might realize that this was the year America started on the path to a sustainable future. There are finally a number of positive developments, and every week brings more good news. Carbon emissions are declining in the US—in fact, they’re down 9 percent since 2007! Electricity sales are
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