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Off-the-grid homes are coming to your neighborhood, as climate change creates suburban survivalists

Off-the-grid homes are coming to your neighborhood, as climate change creates suburban survivalists

Benjamin Keys of the Wharton School said off-the-grid features like solar panels are increasingly popular with homeowners. “It’s not just for extremists. I think you’re going to see more and more people looking for ways in which they can protect themselves as there are increased risk from storms, more utility disruptions, and more need for resiliency,” he said.

Studying plants from 400 miles up
student standing outside with mountains in the background

Paul Lin completed a senior thesis grounded in his dual interests in the environment and data science. (Image: Courtesy of Paul Lin)

Studying plants from 400 miles up

Using remote sensing data, senior Paul Lin looked for signals of climate change in the grasslands of the Great Plains.

Katherine Unger Baillie

To improve climate models, an international team turns to archaeological data
map of the united states

The final classification employs an 8x8 kilometer grid scale, large from an archaeological perspective but which allows for consistency. The four maps here show the effect of grid size on data visibility. (Image: Chad Hill, published in PLOS ONE)

To improve climate models, an international team turns to archaeological data

The project, called LandCover6k, offers a new classification system that the researchers hope will improve predictions about the planet’s future and fill in gaps about its past.

Michele W. Berger

Penn’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions within the endowment
Facade of a Penn Campus building from the ground view with a blue sky.
  • Q&A

    • Penn’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions within the endowment

    Penn’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions within the endowment. The Office of Investments has established the goal of reducing the net greenhouse gas emissions from Penn’s endowment investments to zero by 2050.

    Dee Patel

    Stopping price reform won't eliminate flood risk

    Stopping price reform won't eliminate flood risk

    Carolyn Kousky of the Wharton School wrote an op-ed about helping at-risk households who can’t afford flood insurance by adopting a means-tested disaster insurance program for those in need. “Climate change is escalating flood risk around the country,” she wrote. “Failure to update pricing, though, effectively hides this risk from the market and limits financial incentives for risk reduction.”

    Why celebrities are agog over this tiny climate think tank

    Why celebrities are agog over this tiny climate think tank

    Zane Cooper, a doctoral candidate in the Annenberg School for Communication, said all networked computation, including cryptocurrency, is powered by fossil fuels and harmful to the environment. “Bitcoin reveals a fundamental truth about the relationship between computing and energy,” he said.

    Rep. Jamaal Bowman sees climate as the next big education push after COVID-19 reopening

    Rep. Jamaal Bowman sees climate as the next big education push after COVID-19 reopening

    Daniel Aldana Cohen of the School of Arts & Sciences and Akira Drake Rodriguez and Billy Fleming of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design spoke about the “climate + community project,” which calls for transformative investments in green infrastructure and public education. “There’s a ton of public money on the table this decade—we have to spend it right,” said Cohen.

    Bringing the humanities into climate education
    Penn student Tsemone Ogbemi

    Senior Tsemone Ogbemi, an English major, has been working with the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities on projects that highlight the importance of stories and art in grappling with the climate crisis. (Image: Courtesy of Tsemone Ogbemi)

    Bringing the humanities into climate education

    Senior Tsemone Ogbemi is sharing the important role of the arts in comprehending climate through her work at the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities and in an environmental conference she is presenting at this week.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    Report urges overall strategy for national security and climate crisis
    Colorful sky and melting arctic sea ice.

    nocred

    Report urges overall strategy for national security and climate crisis

    The Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law and Annenberg Public Policy Center have released Lessons from the Arctic: The Need for Intersectoral Climate Security Policy, a report on critical climate-change security issues.

    From the Annenberg Public Policy Center

    The outlook for science under the Biden-Harris administration
    International leaders celebrate the Paris Climate Accord

    President Biden made good on his promise to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord on his first day in office. The agreement was originally adopted at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015. (Image: UNclimatechange)

    The outlook for science under the Biden-Harris administration

    Penn Today spoke with experts in various areas of science and environmental policy about what they anticipate will shift now that President Biden has assumed the nation’s leadership.

    Katherine Unger Baillie