Read

It’s astronomical autumn, but we’re not done talking about summer weather yet:
Why haven’t we had an Atlantic hurricane yet? Thank El Niño. (Grist, September 25, 2026)
The Jersey Shore surveys the damage as the region emerges from a furious nor’easter (Philadelphia Inquirer, September 27, 2026)

We Need to Stop Talking Like Climate Change Is Partisan (Time, September 21, 2026)

Pennsylvania’s AI Boom Is Repeating Old Patterns of Exploitation (Inside Climate News, September 22, 2026)

Death by a thousand dams (Biographic, September 22, 2026)

Announcing the SustainPHL 2026 Nominees (Green Philly, September 23, 2026)

How Should We Cover the Climate Story? (Columbia Journalism Review, September 23, 2026)

EPA Invests in Wetland Projects Throughout the Mid-Atlantic (EPA, September 24, 2026)

Nature Writing as a Collective: an Interview with Christopher Supplee (The YAWP, September 25, 2026)

Philadelphia-area schools are tapping the sun’s energy and saving money on utilities (WHYY, September 26, 2026)

Act

Act Now to Protect Clean Water!
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving forward with gutting the Clean Water Act by further limiting which waters are protected at the federal level. This move puts practically all streams and wetlands at risk and is a blatant giveaway to corporate polluters who have been trying to weaken the Clean Water Act for decades. We must speak up and tell the EPA that we need to strengthen, not weaken, protections for clean water. Submit your comment now before the October 9 deadline!

Data Center Moratorium Now!
Hours after hundreds of Philadelphians launched the No Data Centers in Philly campaign demanding a moratorium on data centers, Mayor Parker felt the pressure, and proposed a task force. A task force and a promise to “study” the issue, while Big Tech keeps creeping in, isn’t enough. Council members need to hear from their constituents now. Add your name and send the letter below and tell them City Council has a job to do: Protect neighborhoods.

Do

U-Pick Herbs
Tuesday, September 29 from 6 – 7 p.m.
Cobbs Creek Environmental Center, 700 Cobbs Creek Parkway
Have you ever sampled the herbs in our Community Orchard? Now is your opportunity to take some home! Join us for a u-pick event to gather some of the abundance before the fall frost takes what’s left. Tools and bags provided.

Painting with Plants
Friday, October 2 from 5 – 7 p.m.
Cherry Street Pier, 121 North Christopher Columbus Boulevard
Paint with plant based pigments including rhubarb, onion peel, turmeric, chlorophyll , marigold, lilac, blue lotus, blood orange, sugar snap pea, logwood, mallow, hibiscus, and more. Collaborative pieces will be exhibited in the August 2027 fiber exhibition, Phibers Phibers. The event is free and drop in.

Hand Processing at FDR Park
Saturday, October 3 from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
FDR Park, 1500 Pattison Avenue
Join the PA Flax Project and the Friends of FDR Park to learn how flax crops becomes spinnable fiber! A flax plot has been growing in the Learning Garden all summer long and will soon be ready to harvest. Next step is turning this grassy reed into a handmade fiber.

Tacony Creek Park Music & Arts Festival 2026
Saturday, October 3 from 1 – 5 p.m.
East Olney Avenue & East Clarkson Avenue
Olney Culture Lab of CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia and Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership are happy to present the 6th edition of the Tacony Creek Park Music & Arts Festival! There will be music performances, on, there will be arts & crafts, nature games, bike rides along the park trail, giveaways and donuts and cider to ring in the fall!

de/composition 1.2: Native Trees, Sonic Roots
Saturday, October 3 from 7 – 9 p.m.
Bennett Compost, 5650 Rising Sun Avenue
de/composition is an immersive multimedia performance that brings together music, movement, and captivating visuals to explore the natural world of Olney and Tacony Creek Park.

Seed Collection Workshop
Sunday, October 4 from 9 – 9:45 a.m.
High School Park, Montgomery Ave & High School Rd.
Join Stu, our restoration manager, and Ryan, TTF’s conservation leader, for a morning of learning best practices around collecting, processing, and storing native seeds to support successful cultivation for the upcoming spring season. Participants are welcome to take the seeds they collect home or donate them to the park for next year.

Native Plant Prep Party
Monday, October 5 from 6:30 – 9 p.m.
DGS at Sulimay’s Restaurant, 632 E Girard Avenue
We’re gearing up for the 2027 iteration of the Philly Native Plant Project, and we need YOUR HELP! We’ve got seeds, we’ve got stickers, we need YOUR hands to help us pack everything up. ​We’ll provide beers and pretzels, you bring those paws. We’ll have some fun educational material to share out with your neighborhoods too.

View

No Other Place to Go
Through October 17
InLiquid
This exhibition, No Other Place to Go, explores how photography not only documents climate change but also offers space for reflection, resilience, and connection. While climate change is often accompanied by feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, these works also reveal adaptation, care, and the enduring relationship between people and place. The featured artists—Richard Boutwell, Anita Allyn, Laura Krasnow, Kaitlin Pomerantz, and Emma Ressel—demonstrate photography’s capacity to reveal both the fragility and persistence of a world undergoing rapid climatic and ecological change.

Eco-Social Realism: Historic Mural Activations
Through November 21, 2026
TILT Main Gallery
Eco-Social Realism: Historic Mural Activations takes as its starting point four murals within the larger neighborhood around TILT that were produced in the early years of Mural Arts Philadelphia. As with many murals of that time period, these four engaged in the representation of pastoral and garden scenes, often mixing fantasy with landscapes familiar to both nearby Pennsylvania and the Caribbean, where many neighbors originally migrated from. Four Philadelphia artists have been invited to use these murals as a prompt to create activations throughout the summer of 2026 that include active engagement with the site and neighboring areas to explore the meaning of the original work and its relevance for the present.

Indigenous Irregularities: Anna Tsouhlarakis
Through December 5
Tyler School of Art and Architecture
“Indigenous Irregularities: Anna Tsouhlarakis,” is the second annual exhibition presenting works created by the Edgar Heap of Birds Family Artist-in-Residence at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Opening Aug. 25 at Temple Contemporary, the show features text collages and newly created sculptures by Tsouhlarakis.

Walking the Schuylkill
Through January 8
Fairmount Waterworks
Over time, the Schuylkill has served the city and its industry, first with a canal system and later with railroads and highways in the river’s flood plain. “Walking the Schuylkill” intends to capture and highlight those marks, illustrating the character of the modern Schuylkill River.

Plan ahead 

Writers’ Circle: Inkcaps, Moss, & Manuscripts
Wednesday, October 7 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

BiodiversiTEASE: CaBUGaret
Friday, October 9 from 7 – 9:30 p.m.

Out in Nature
Saturday, October 10 from 12 – 3 p.m.

Why we don’t have nice things?
Saturday, October 10 from 1 – 2:30 p.m.