Pennsylvania Legacies Pennsylvania Environmental Council

Coniferous trees once figured prominently in the makeup of Penn's Woods, but their populations never fully recovered from the deforestation of the nineteenth century. Now Pennsylvania's conifers face a new threat: invasive competitors and pests, warmer and wetter weather, and other disruptions linked to climate change.

We explore an evergreen topic with Joe Stavish of Tree Pittsburgh in advance of the group's upcoming Conifer Symposium on June 14.

Of America's ten most endangered waterways, as ranked by the group American Rivers, two can be found in Pennsylvania. While the problems they face are very different, the Ohio and Lehigh rivers both illustrate how intimately connected water issues are with human activity and a changing climate -- not just in the northeastern U.S., but nationwide.

The Pennsylvania Wilds is in the midst of an economic revival based on nature and outdoor recreation, but local leaders and residents worry their success could be undone by military jets flying at very low altitudes over protected public lands. With public comment now being accepted, we look at concerns about the Maryland Air National Guard's plans to expand training operations over one of Pennsylvania's wildest areas.

When people vote to raise their own taxes to fund conservation programs, it's noteworthy. When it happens in a deeply conservative rural community, it's unusual. But when the proposal passes by a four-to-one margin, it's a mandate -- and then some.

How did the campaign for Carbon County's open space initiative achieve such a blowout? And could other Sixth Class PA counties do the same? Organizer Dennis DeMara has answers.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 will deliver unprecedented federal funding for alternative transportation by way of the Carbon Reduction Program. What might that mean for southeastern PA's Circuit Trails initiative? We discuss with Matthew Edmonds of the Montgomery County Planning Commission.

Oil and gas companies pay the U.S. government for the opportunity to drill on public lands, but they only pay royalties on natural gas that's captured and sold. When it's not worth the trouble of bringing it to market, companies either flare off surplus methane or simply release it into the atmosphere, where its near-term climate impact is worse than carbon dioxide's. A new Environmental Defense Fund report documents the amount of gas being wasted as well as the cost to taxpayers, consumers, and the environment.