Pennsylvania Legacies

There are 349 rare, threatened, or endangered native plant species in Pennsylvania. The habitats they call home are as diverse as the plants themselves. As the climate changes, new challenges will arise for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the group in charge of managing these habitats and protecting Pennsylvania’s rare plants.

On this episode, DCNR botanist Andrew Rohrbaugh discusses what the future may hold for Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable flora.

It's one thing for an environmental organization to tout its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's another thing to live out that commitment at the level of programming and daily activities.

On this episode: how Philadelphia's Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership is innovating upon its mission to protect the watershed and better serve all its residents.

Billions of dollars' worth of solar panels and other components are flowing into the U.S. from China, feeding a market increasingly hungry for renewable energy. Many are made with materials linked to alleged forced-labor practices in the Xinjiang region. As the market heats up and trans-Pacific trade relations become strained, a new supply chain traceability protocol created by the Solar Energy Industries Association offers importers a way to prove their products are ethically and sustainably sourced.

Trails can be a tremendous economic opportunity for small towns – but all the funding and political muscle in the world won’t matter if a trail project doesn’t address real community needs and center community voices.

In her new book, trails advocate and community-builder Amy Camp explains why the most successful Trail Town initiatives are built on an authentic local “trails culture” and a community-wide decision to invest in trails.

In the perennial swing state of Pennsylvania, elections are often decided by voters who don’t identify with either political party – and recent polling shows Independents have swung hard on the issue of climate. With 3 out of 4 Pennsylvanians now voicing serious concern about the impacts of climate change, what’s the political cost of inaction? Analysis from Jim Lee, CEO of Susquehanna Polling & Research, and Franz Litz of Litz Energy Strategies LLC.

Nobody knows exactly how many orphaned oil and gas wells dot the Pennsylvania landscape, but even conservative estimates put the number well into the hundreds of thousands. Every day these defunct facilities remain unplugged, they’re emitting greenhouse gases, contaminating groundwater, and compromising air quality. Their owners are nowhere to be found, leaving the Commonwealth holding the bag and largely unable to meet the costs of remediation.

The recently introduced REGROW Act would provide billions of federal dollars for orphan well cleanup across the U.S. What would it mean for Pennsylvania? Analysis from Adam Peltz, Senior Attorney with Environmental Defense Fund.

In 1971, Pennsylvania became the first state to guarantee citizens' rights to clean air, pure water, and a healthy environment. Fifty years later, the state legislator who led the campaign for Pennsylvania's Environmental Rights Amendment is taking it to the next level. In his new book, Franklin Kury makes the case for a federal constitutional amendment to meet the unprecedented threat of climate change.

For most of its history in academia, ecological studies has been centered on STEM disciplines. But an emerging interdisciplinary movement is opening the environmental field to new scholarly approaches and bringing new voices into the discussion.

PEC’s Lily Jones speaks with John MacNeill Miller, a professor of English literature at Allegheny College, about his work exploring the link between humans and non-human systems through a cultural lens.

As Pennsylvania weighs a new DEP rule that would expand leak detection and repair requirements for oil and gas producers, there's new research on the integrity of relatively low-producing "stripper" wells. Such facilities would remain exempt under Pennsylvania's current rulemaking, but a University of Cincinnati study suggests they're among the leakiest well sites in Appalachia. We speak with the author, Dr. Amy Townsend-Small.

The 2021 Wild & Scenic Film Festival On Tour lands in Pennsylvania on March 18, with virtual screenings handpicked for local audiences by PEC's affiliate, the Pennsylvania Organization for Watersheds and Rivers (POWR). We chat with the makers of this year's featured selection, "A Community Conservation Effort," about Kentucky's Greenspace, Inc.