Jordan Teicher

Aug 1, 2024 | gridphilly.com | Jordan Teicher

Since former Mayor Jim Kenney set a goal three years ago of making Philadelphia carbon neutral by 2050, City government has been busy. It has replaced street lights with efficient LEDs, electrified its vehicle fleet and improved the energy efficiency of City buildings. All those initiatives can only go so far to help Philadelphia become carbon neutral, however, since they only impact municipally-owned property.

May 1, 2024 | gridphilly.com | Jordan Teicher

It’s 7:30 a.m. on a Friday in late March and Stephen Maciejewski is walking around Center City looking for dead or injured birds. He isn’t hoping to find any. But it’s spring migration, a time when millions of birds pass through the city on their way north. Maciejewski knows many of them are bound to strike the countless glass windows in Philadelphia’s urban core. When that happens, Maciejewski, a volunteer with Bird Safe Philly, intends to document it.

Apr 17, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Jordan Teicher

On February 10, 2024, a wave of anti-Western protests erupted in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), blaming Western inaction on eastern violence and suspected Rwandan involvement. Initially focused on Kinshasa, the capital, the demonstrations spread to the eastern provinces, where fighting between the Congolese Army and M23 rebels has intensified.

Apr 1, 2024 | gridphilly.com | Jordan Teicher

Most mornings, Victoria Miles-Chambliss walks down the street from her home in Kingsessing to the Cecil Street Community Garden to drink a cup of coffee. Among the newly-planted native trees and echinacea plants, she sees something that was once a rare sight in her neighborhood: birds. “Our block has really changed since we put in the garden,” she says. “It’s like an oasis in the middle of Southwest Philadelphia.”It’s not the only place in the neighborhood that’s seeing new visitors.

Mar 1, 2024 | gridphilly.com | Jordan Teicher

For thousands of years, people used organic materials like plants, insects and minerals to create dyes. But in 1856, an 18-year-old chemistry student named William Henry Perkin changed everything. While attempting to create synthetic quinine using coal tar, Perkin accidentally developed mauveine, the world’s first synthetic dye. His invention of the rich purple hue unlocked a whole new universe of color — and a host of devastating consequences for the environment and human health.