Tagged Environment and Nature

Intro to Houseplants & Repotting

Erica Johnson will explore and share information on a variety of houseplants and how to care for them—proper lighting, watering, soil, repotting, and much more. Each attendee will receive an easy-care plant, soil and a flowerpot.…

Fishadelphia’s Seafood Stories Extravaganza!

Come learn about local seafood, learn to shuck an oyster, and make some fish prints! Philadelphia’s own community seafood program Fishadelphia is highlighted in the PBS docuseries Hope in the Water . This event will include a…

We Are What We Eat: An Exhibition from Special Collections

The Free Library’s exhibition, We Are What We Eat , explores the intersection of food, community, and identity. With recipes and cooking techniques passed down through generations, culinary heritage helps preserve flavors and…

All About Blueberry the Betta

From the science of fish bodies to habitat and more, come learn all everybody's favorite library staff member, Blueberry!  Tuesdays July 9, 16, and 30 at 4:00pm in the Story Hour Room This program is intended for children…

EcoFutures EcoAlternatives

Science Fiction and Fantasy with Environmental Themes

Wild Weather

From global warming and carbon footprints to new weather forecasting technologies and more frequent natural disasters like volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, tornadoes, typhoons, hurricanes, and more.

Green Living

Green living allows you to become an everyday environmentalist. Go green with these helpful resources including alternative energy, organic cooking, and eco-friendly solutions for your home and garden!

Gale OneFile | High School Edition (formerly InfoTrac Student Edition) *

High school students will have access to age-appropriate content from magazines, journals, newspapers, reference books, and engaging multi-media covering a wide range of subjects, from science, history, and literature to political…

R. Jisung Park | Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World

In conversation with Patrick Behrer, Research Economist, Development Economics, World Bank How the subtle but significant consequences of a hotter planet have already begun—from lower test scores to higher crime rates—and how we might…

Lydia Millet | We Loved it All: A Memory of Life

Praised for her “darkly funny and painfully sharp” ( Los Angeles Times ) fiction, Lydia Millet is the author of the novel  A Children’s Bible , shortlisted for the National Book Award and a  New York Times  Top 10 book of 2020; the…

Shayla Lawson | How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir

In conversation with Jeannine Cook, owner of Harriett’s Bookshop and Ida’s Books Shayla Lawson  is the author of  This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope , a “whip-smart” ( People ) essay collection about…

Ruha Benjamin | Imagination: A Manifesto

In conversation with Shantrelle Lewis Ruha Benjamin  is the author of  Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code , a “galvanizing” and “inventive and wide-ranging” ( The Nation ) look at how new technologies…

Michael E. Mann | Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis

The Presidential Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, climatologist and geophysicist Michael E. Mann has greatly contributed to science’s…

David E. Guggenheim | The Remarkable Reefs Of Cuba: Hopeful Stories From the Ocean Doctor

A marine scientist, ocean explorer, conservation policy specialist, and submarine pilot, David E. Guggenheim, Ph.D. is the founder and president of Ocean Doctor, a nonprofit organization committed to advancing the conservation of the…

Camille Dungy | Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden

In conversation with Abra Lee Camille T. Dungy  is the author of  Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History , a debut personal essay collection that was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle…

Anna Badkhen | Bright Unbearable Reality: Essays

In conversation with Airea D. Matthews, 2022-2023 Philadelphia Poet Laureate and Co-Director of the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr With an artist’s perspective and a ground-level view of people in extremis across the world,…

Michael Pollan | This is Your Mind on Plants

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition One of the world’s foremost chroniclers of the intersection of the human and natural worlds, Michael Pollan is a No. 1  New York Times  bestselling author of…

Bill McKibben | The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened

“The world’s best green journalist” ( TIME ), Bill McKibben gave one of the earliest cautions about climate change with his 1989 book The End of Nature . His many other bestselling books about the environment include Falter , Deep…

Ben Okri | Every Leaf a Hallelujah and Astonishing the Gods

In conversation with Cajetan Iheka, Associate Professor of Literature, Yale University, and author of African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics One of Nigeria’s most celebrated authors, Ben Okri is the author of many…

Richard Powers | Bewilderment

In conversation with Andrew Ervin A “genuine artist … who can render the intricate dazzle of it all and at the same time plumb its philosophical implications” ( Esquire ), Richard Powers won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for  The…

Sebastian Junger | Freedom

In conversation with Joe Klein, Time political columnist and bestselling author of six books including Primary Colors and most recently Politics Lost Employing “his narrative gifts and vivid prose” ( The Washington Post ) to chronicle…

Suzanne Simard | Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest 

In conversation with Joan Maloof, Professor Emeritus at Salisbury University and founder of the Old-Growth Forest Network. Her most recent book is Treepedia: A Brief Compendium of Arboreal Lore One of the world’s leading forest…

Walter Isaacson | The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

Pine Tree Foundation Lecture In conversation with Tracey Matisak, award-winning broadcaster and journalist “A renaissance man…driven by a joyful desiredrive to discover” ( The Times of London ), Walter Isaacson is the author of…

Elizabeth Kolbert | Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future

Barbara Gohn Day Memorial Lecture In conversation with Tracey Matisak, award-winning broadcaster and journalist “An astute observer, excellent explainer, and superb synthesizer” ( Seattle Times ), Elizabeth Kolbert is the author of the…

Charles Kenny | The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease

A senior fellow and the director of technology and development at the Center for Global Development, Charles Kenny has extensively contributed to policy reforms in global health, UN peacekeeping, and international financial corruption,…

Katherine May | Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

In conversation with Tracey Matisak, award-winning broadcaster and journalist Katherine May ’s fiction and memoirs include The Electricity of Every Living Thing ,  Burning Out, a nd  No-Stress Meditation . She was also the editor of …

Catherine Coleman Flowers | Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret

In conversation with Khaliah Ali Wertheimer Dubbed the “Erin Brockovich of Sewage,” Catherine Coleman Flowers is a hero of the environmental justice movement. She is the rural development manager at the Race and Poverty Initiative of…

Barbara Kingsolver | How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

A “gifted magician of words” ( Time ), Barbara Kingsolver is the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist  The Poisonwood Bible , a postcolonial epic about an evangelical American family’s undoing in the Congo. She is the author of several…