{"id":319495,"date":"2026-11-02T13:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T13:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/319495\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T13:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T13:28:07","slug":"philadelphias-new-climate-toolkit-for-neighborhood-gatherings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/319495\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia\u2019s new climate toolkit for neighborhood gatherings"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n

From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Do you want to make your neighborhood more resilient to extreme heat and flooding, but don\u2019t know where to start? The city of Philadelphia has a guide for that.\n<\/p>\n

A new community climate resilience toolkit<\/a> released by the city\u2019s Office of Sustainability is designed to help residents gather with neighbors to discuss growing hazards such as flooding, extreme heat and poor air quality, and what they can do to prepare.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change is having an impact on how intense and how frequently we\u2019re experiencing those hazards, and they pose a real risk to our public health and safety,\u201d said Jordan Par\u00e9s-Kane, a climate resilience specialist with the Office of Sustainability. \u201cWe want people to have hope, and we want people to understand that there\u2019s a lot that they can do.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The toolkit is part of the city\u2019s process of creating a new climate resilience plan<\/a>. The office expects to release the plan next year, assessing the city\u2019s vulnerability to climate-driven hazards and making recommendations for how to address them. The city held a series of workshops<\/a> with around 400 residents to inform the plan and the toolkit.\n<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in Philadelphia\u2019s climate resilience toolkit?<\/p>\n

The toolkit includes slideshows that summarize how climate-driven threats such as extreme heat, flooding and poor air quality are projected to impact Philadelphia in the coming decades. It also includes sample meeting agendas and ice breakers for neighborhood gatherings.\n<\/p>\n

City officials envision gatherings where neighbors discuss how extreme weather affects their blocks and what they can do together to address it. The toolkit includes prompts for residents to discuss things they love about their neighborhoods and resources they wish they had, as well as a prompt to exchange contact information with a neighbor.\n<\/p>\n

Desiree Riley, founder of the nonprofit Mastermind Cooperative<\/a>, helped the city run the workshops and said participants expressed a need for more educational resources about climate change.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMany times people don\u2019t even know the correct term for what they\u2019re living through and what their families are being challenged with,\u201d Riley said. \u201cHelping to eliminate a lot of those blind spots is something that the toolkit can do.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Par\u00e9s-Kane said residents can use Philadelphia\u2019s toolkit as a starting point to advocate for policy change or more resources from their elected officials. She hopes the neighborhood gatherings result in more residents taking advantage of resources that already exist.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to see more people signed up for ReadyPhiladelphia alerts<\/a>, for example, more people clicking on links for utility assistance, for housing assistance,\u201d Par\u00e9s-Kane said. \u201cMaybe people also are accessing more resources in \u2026 their own community organization.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[264,69,71,70,5206],"class_list":["post-319495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-climate-change","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}