Environmental Matters

Everything has a history, including the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the environments we inhabit—as well as the ways we think about, understand, and confront waste, pollution, and climate change.

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

How Two Outsider Scientists Saw Inside Climate Change

Eunice Foote and Guy Callendar showed the warming effects of CO2 in the atmosphere.

plastic bag with a colorful background

EXHIBITIONS

Is the Plastic Bag History?

This outdoor and digital exhibition explores the history of a familiar object from a surprising number of angles.

Color illustration of a rare earths mine, with people looking distressed.

DISTILLATIONS PODCAST

Rare Earths: The Hidden Cost to Their Magic

There are plenty of these essential elements, but getting them out of the ground leaves behind massive environmental damage.

colorful board game

EXHIBITIONS

Playing Dirty

This outdoor and digital exhibition explores the intersections of environmentalism, education, and fun through board games from the 1970s.

Youth in stream wearing waders holding net

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

Ruth Patrick’s Lovely Creatures

The groundbreaking ecologist showed that the biological diversity within a stream can be used to diagnose its health.

SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHIES

Susan Solomon

In 1986 the atmospheric chemist provided the most conclusive evidence that CFCs were destroying the Earth’s ozone layer.

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

River Gods, Lake Monsters, and the Abiding Power of Myth

How ancient (and not so ancient) cultures thought about water purity and contamination.

A group of about 14 Adelie penguins on an iceberg in Antarctica

DISTILLATIONS PODCAST

Whatever Happened to the Ozone Hole?

An environmental success story.

Gowanus Canal

DISTILLATIONS VIDEO

CSI: Gowanus—Cleaning up the Canal

Take a trip down Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal with cartographer and citizen scientist Eymund Diegel.

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Oral History: Mario Molina

Interview with the Nobel Prize-winning chemist who first discovered the dangers of CFCs to the Earth’s ozone layer.

environmental board game

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Environmental Board Game Collection

Educational board games focused on water, pollution, and climate.

Two women standing on street dabbing their eyes

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

Smith Griswold Sells the War against Smog

To fight air pollution, officials first had to convince Californians that carmakers were the enemy, not cars.

Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring transformed the nation’s consciousness.

SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHIES

Rachel Carson

The marine biologist’s book Silent Spring marked a turning point in society’s understanding of the environment.

Lithograph of a view of the Fairmount Water Works with the Schuylkill River in the distance, 1838.

DISTILLATIONS PODCAST

How Philadelphia’s Water Pollution Problems Shaped the City

Hear how Philly became an unexpected water pollution pioneer.

Ad for L’Insectoline

DIGITAL EXHIBITIONS

Biting Words

In the mid-20th century, tensions between humans and mosquitoes reached fever pitch.

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