Category Archives: Miscellaneous

We’re thinking about renovation a lot these days

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By Anna Lehr Mueser, Public Relations Manager

We’re now 18 days into our building renovations, with the entire east wing of our visitor center closed off.  On the first day, a wall went up to keep noise and dust down.  Behind that wall, floors and bathrooms are being replaced, some classrooms renovated while others refreshed, windows updated with more energy-efficient versions, and the antique HVAC replaced.

So here, six things we’re looking forward to about the new spaces:

  1. Elisabeth, our public programs manager, is looking forward to the new aesthetic, with modern colors and an auditorium scaled up for big events like our James Lecture.
  2. So is Daphne, the program coordinator for Nature Rx. She says she’s interested to see new designs and styles at play in the familiar spaces.
  3. Nicole, lead teacher in the Sycamore Nature Preschool classroom, is looking forward to watching the children re-discover the space when the renovations are over and the preschool classes can move back into their usual rooms.
  4. It’s the pragmatic elements for Gail, our director of education. She’s excited for updated bathrooms and a new HVAC system, this one updated, modern, and using electricity generated by Pennsylvania wind power.  But, she’s also looking forward to seeing the new colors.
  5. Like Gail, Sean, our land and facilities manager, says he’s looking forward to the new heating system. But he’s also ready to see the east wing spruced up and with a nicer look.
  6. For Beatrice, our registrar, the auditorium is also a draw. With the 1960s speakers and old baseboard removed, a new floor, and freshly painted walls, not to mention updated lighting, the auditorium will be a great space.
  7. Denise, who handles our site rentals (everything from corporate retreats to plots in our community gardens), is looking forward to the kitchen updates.

All in all, lots going on behind that wall.  We’re all excited to see what it will look like when the wall comes down in the spring.

The Next Mayor of a Great American City

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By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

It’s still deep in the winter, so it’s not too surprising that the city’s mayoral race has barely begun heating up, and candidates are still sorting themselves out.  As of this writing, the May Democratic primary features quite a range of experiences: former DA Lynne Abraham, former Common Pleas judge Nelson Diaz, former councilman James Kenny, former senior VP at the Gas Works Doug Oliver, state senator Anthony Williams, and possibly even former state senator Milton Street, a former mayor’s brother.

On the Republican side, while both newly retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice Ron Castille and businessman Sam Katz opted out, only a few are considering dipping their toes in the water, including business executives Elmer Money and Melissa Murray Bailey.

For you, a resident of the city, what are your issues in the next mayoral race?  The economy?  Always.  Public safety and crime?  Of course.  Taxes?  Sure.

The environment?  Likely not so much.

Interestingly, because of the controversy surrounding fracking, the environment has risen to the top of the statewide political agenda, and new Governor Tom Wolf scored headlines recently when he banned fracking in state parks, reversing previous Governor Tom Corbett’s policy—with area State Representative Pam DeLissio right at the new governor’s side at the signing.

And the environment has not been a complete stranger to Philadelphia’s mayoral races: for the 1991 campaign won by Ed Rendell, solid waste and recycling was a huge issue, inspired in part by 1990’s wave for support for the environment coupled with the city’s waste options dwindling at the time.  Yes, necessity is not only the mother of invention, but the father of attention in political campaigns.

Mayor Nutter ran smartly on a sustainability campaign, establishing the Office of Sustainability in City Hall, an office recently made permanent, and he has been a champion of bikes and The Circuit, the region’s burgeoning 700-mile trail biking-hiking system.

So what are the environmental issues in Philadelphia, especially in the Northwest?  What great green actions would you like the next mayor to take?

Open space is huge hereabouts, as the real estate market recovers and developers begin eying tracts of undeveloped land in places like Upper Roxborough.

There are many areas of the city without parks, or without good parks with working amenities, and THAT should be on the next mayor’s radar screen.

Housing should not only be affordable, but sustainable.  Can we combine the two?

Philadelphia sits at the confluence of two great rivers.  River-rich, we should be bringing people down to the rivers for recreation, like Destination Schuylkill River does, and the water should be of a quality high enough not to endanger those people.

Finishing The Circuit is a huge project with only upsides for all residents of the region.

The Schuylkill Center two weeks ago hosted a lecture by artist Mary Mattingly, who built a floating houseboat for the Fringe Festival last fall, a boat reminiscent of a Philadelphia rowhouse sinking slowly into the river. She was using “WetLand” to discuss climate change, which will cause the tidal Delaware River basin to rise measurably—is Philadelphia ready for this?  Planners are already discussing phrases like “climate mitigation,” referring to heat waves, droughts, floods, rising waters… Should politicians be discussing this as well?  Should we?

Lynne Abraham’s website says she is “running for mayor to transform Philadelphia into America’s Next Great American City.”   That’s fine.  Tony Williams’ site notes his big three issues: education, public safety, economy.”  Also fine.  But can we be a great city if we are unprepared for the river’s rise?  Can we enjoy public safety if the summer swelters under heat waves?

What environmental issues do you think the next mayor should work on?  Tweet me @SCEEMike, I’ll publish your responses, and let’s begin a long, overdue conversation.

This piece was first published in the Roxborough Review on Thursday, February 12, 2015 in the column Natural Selections.

Climate Change and the Two Toms

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By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

This piece will printed in the Roxborough Review on Thursday, June 19 in the column Natural Selections

“We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change,” Washington State Governor Jay Inslee notably says in the new TV series, Years of Living Dangerously, “and we are the last generation that can do something about it.”

Inslee gets it—climate change will be the transcendent environmental issue of the coming decades.  Hard to know yet if either Governor Tom Corbett or his opponent, Democratic challenger Tom Wolf, gets it at quite this high level of concern.

For me, an environmental educator following the climate change debate for 25 years, I thought it a baby step forward that the Governor actually used the phrase “greenhouse gas emissions.”  Visionary?  Maybe not.  A step forward?  Absolutely.

In their first public appearance of the coming electoral season, the two Toms squared off in Center City last week at the annual dinner of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.  They each presented their vision for the environment, and while sparks didn’t exactly fly, they presented some notable differences.

‘The governor, an avid kayaker, reminded us of a time—not that long ago—when you wouldn’t want to kayak in many of Pennsylvania’s rivers, especially Pittsburgh rivers where Corbett grew up.  Today, it’s notable “how much cleaner the rivers are, and not one day (he has kayaked) I haven’t seen an eagle.”

The word “balance” appeared in his remarks multiple times, and he noted that greenhouse gas emissions in Pennsylvania were falling, that he has enforced environmental laws on the criminal side, that Pennsylvania has “the most progressive set of environmental laws in the nation,” and that “others states are coming (to Pennsylvania) to see how we did this.”

For me, an environmental educator following the climate change debate for 25 years, unnerved by how politically polarizing the debate has become, I thought it a baby step forward that the Governor actually used the phrase “greenhouse gas emissions.”  Visionary?  Maybe not.  A step forward?  Absolutely.

Challenger Tom Wolf then fired a warning shot across Corbett’s bow; with the governor bringing his secretaries of the Departments of Conservation and Natural Resources and Environmental Protection to the event, Wolf said he’d hire “qualified individuals” who used science and data to manage environmental concerns.

He also promised a “severance tax” on Marcellus shale; while Corbett levies an “impact fee” on drillers, many policy experts hoped for a tax, like other Marcellus states use, as the tax would generate much more than the $630 million that has come to Pennsylvania from the impact fee in the last three years.

Wolf, promising to put Pennsylvania on the “cutting edge” of a new clean energy economy, touted a seven point plan for the environment, noted that “one day, a carbon-based energy will be a thing of the past,” and said he wants Pennsylvania to consider joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort among nine states to reduce the types of pollution linked to global warming. That last point—given, mind you, to a room filled with environmental lawyers and green policy geeks—was the sole applause line of either Tom’s speeches. The only one.

What that told me is professionals within the environmental sphere—which, let’s be honest, will be a hugely important driver of jobs in the 21st century—get what Martin Luther King called, in a different context, “the fierce urgency of now.”

With carbon dioxide levels higher than they have been in millions of years, with ice caps in retreat, glaciers melting, sea levels rising, temperatures warming, the weather getting weird, Pennsylvania needs a full throated, complex discussion of our environmental future.

That conversation only began last week in a Center City banquet room between the battling Toms.  Let’s hope it continues among all of us.

Local Food Culture in Philadelphia: A look at a growing movement

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By Daphne Churchill, Intern and Educator

FarmsandA bright sunny Saturday draws you out for a morning walk.  You look up the street and see the white tents with tables of fresh products: red radishes, leafy green lettuce, freshly cut flower bouquets, free-range eggs, fresh goat cheeses, liquid amber honeys.  The tables are bountiful and the tents abundant.  Neighbors chat with one another as they nibble free samples and discuss their purchases.  You overhear growers converse about sustainable practices and their business with the consumers as they debate and make their purchases.  This typical scene of a farmer’s market has become ever more common in Philadelphia during the last decade.  The local economy has seen an increase in the number of farmer’s markets and a diversification of what’s being sold.  Local goods are no longer coming only from Lancaster but from Philadelphia’s own neighborhoods.  City dwellers are increasingly advocating for the use of green space for gardening and are collaborating with a growing number of organizations for food, environmental, and health education initiatives supporting local food culture.

So what is it about local food culture that attracts so many people?  What exactly does it mean for a city like Philadelphia to be described as having a great local food culture?  Is local food viable for long-term sustainability, not just for some but for everyone?  How does growing and buying food locally change one’s relationship with food and with one’s social and economic community?  What are the benefits of growing and buying local foods? Continue reading →