September Staff Picks - Andrew

My articles were found on Google News by using numerous keywords such as “Philadelphia Internet”, “Climate Change Philadelphia”, “Philadelphia Energy”, and “Philadelphia COVID.” My first article discusses Comcast expanding their Internet Essentials Program to Pell Grant recipients This article was chosen due to my pre-existing knowledge on the Internet Essentials Program. Many of the articles I have submitted for previous media briefs discussed Internet Essentials and Internet Vulnerability in Philadelphia at large. While not explicitly Philadelphia related, Comcast is a massive part of Philadelphia’s economy and the main Internet Service Provider for the city by a large margin. Evaluating and comparing internet assistance programs to other utility assistance programs, as far as I can tell, has not been done on an academic level. Doing so may allow us to see the effects of the internet's privatized nature on assistance and vulnerability. By collecting these articles, I am able to build a repository for later use for future potential academic papers and research projects. Following my work with The Energy Rights Project, I hope to get a paper published on Internet Vulnerability. 

My next article talks about the high energy burden of Philadelphia and how managing it can protect the city from future climate disasters. This article was written following a storm that flooded much of the city, as do many of the articles in this month’s media brief. The article lays out potential solutions, and commends the city for continuing its efforts to join RGGI, despite GOP pushback. The mention of RGGI reminded me of that cap and trade program’s existence, and I will certainly do more research on the state’s effort to join the program in the future. A push for solarization and weatherization union jobs was mentioned, though no detailed plan was listed. Articles like this make me wonder how weatherization and solarization will enter into mainstream discourse as well as the role community organizations like the ECA have. Everyone on The Energy Rights Project is familiar with the Knights Green Jobs Training Center, and I now wonder how many of the jobs graduates have are union jobs. I wonder if events like the storm in Philadelphia can generate interest towards renovation and rebuilding Philadelphia in the general public. While our surveys were specifically geared towards COVID and Energy Vulnerability, I do wonder what our respondents thought their role in the energy transition was.