Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy appeared at a news conference yesterday in Raleigh as part of a new coalition called the Partnership for North Carolina’s Future. The group urged the General Assembly to begin preparing for what they called a “population tsunami.”
Appalachian Offsets: A grassroots version of carbon trading As consumers and businesses try to lessen their environmental impact, pursuing “carbon neutrality” is growing increasingly popular. Attaining zero-emissions status begins by calculating one’s own “carbon footprint”—the amount of carbon dioxide generated by day-to-day activities—then “offsetting” the rest. Offsetting typically means writing a check to a third […]
“We can’t all camp out in old-growth forests, lying down in front of the bulldozers,” reads a press announcement for Josh Dorfman‘s new book, The Lazy Environmentalist: Your Guide to Easy, Stylish, Green Living (Stewart Tabori & Chang, 2007). “And it’s not only that we’re too busy: Some of us just don’t want our fabulous […]
The Asheville Global Report announced yesterday that this week’s issue — the newspaper’s 436th — will be its last.
Asheville has made yet another list — but don’t bet on this one sending second-home buyers flocking to the mountains. Rather, it aims to send droves of naked bicyclists pedaling into the streets.
Being ahead of the times is nothing new for Asheville’s YWCA—the organization has done it that way for almost a century. Something to smile about: Jasmine Moore, pictured here with her baby Jailyn, is a participant in the YWCA MotherLove program, which offers support for teen moms. Asheville’s YWCA was the first in the South […]
As redevelopment projects spring up in Asheville’s River District, some current tenants—including a group of volunteer bike mechanics—are finding their present digs in peril. In recent weeks, an anonymous “concerned resident of the River Arts District” who professed to be an artist sent a letter to Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy, the city’s Building Safety Department […]
For all the complexity surrounding biofuels, one thing is certain: The market for the vegetable-based, cleaner-than-petroleum fuel is expanding. Goodbye, dirty diesel: Smoky Mountain Biofuels, based in Dillsboro, is in the process of opening 23 new biodiesel pumps. Driver Danny Battista and coowner Alan Begley outside their facility. Jonathan Welch Take the growing biofuels businesses […]
Majora Carter — a lifelong resident of the Bronx who was named a “green giant” by Outside Magazine for her commitment to environmental justice — is coming to speak at Warren Wilson College’s commencement ceremony on May 19.
To all those motorists out there cruising around in some vintage diesel Benz from the 1980s or trusty old pickup with a diesel engine that keeps going and going: You just gained many more opportunities to fuel up with biodiesel.
Shuler co-sponsors a climate bill Rep. Heath Shuler recently signed on as co-sponsor of a bill to reduce global warming emissions. The Climate Stewardship Act of 2007, also known as H.R. 620 or Gilchrest-Olver after the representatives who introduced it, is one of six bills introduced at the federal level that seek to address climate […]
Last summer, Asheville started offering free bus trips in order to boost ridership on the Asheville Transit System. A city-staff report released yesterday gives a detailed assessment of how free fare fared.
Logging Shope’s slopes The portion of Pisgah National Forest that the U.S. Forest Service has dubbed the “Shope Creek Project Area” is home to black bears, salamanders, cerulean warblers and wild trout, among other critters. There are patches of trees estimated to be 150 to 200 years old, and streams that are virtually untouched by […]
Did you ever encounter a person so accomplished that it made you wince at your own insignificance, but at the same time inspired you to go out and scale great heights of your own? Maybe that’s what it will be like for the budding scientists at Warren Wilson College (women in particular) crowding into the […]
Discovering the riverfront RiverLink volunteer Jack Saye spends his free time driving Asheville’s tourists or recent transplants around the city’s River District. The $15 tour runs through Chicken Hill, past the old warehouses near the train tracks, and along the banks of the French Broad and the Swannanoa. The lone couple who joined the April […]
Most of the homes on the dead-end West Asheville street are evenly spaced, single-family residences with front lawns, driveways and the occasional picket fence. But one house stands in stark contrast, with a massive array of solar panels sprouting in the front yard and terraced gardens all around. The inhabitants consider this tucked-away sliver of […]
Rep. Susan Fisher (D-Buncombe), recently introduced H1699, an act to establish a program giving people the option to reject unsolicited junk mail.
Last night at the Madison County Courthouse, yet another chapter unfolded in the saga of Wolf Ridge, where developers Rick Bussey and Orville English are constructing a 900-unit subdivision of luxury homes replete with a wastewater sewage-treatment plant and a private jet strip.
In a recent post on the economy blog of the newly created, locally based Web site sustainablewnc.org, sustainable-enterprise expert Steve Cochran, noting that more and more big businesses are adopting greener ethics, opined, “Real change is here, now.” He cited the latest issue of Fortune magazine, which lists the world’s top 10 “Green Giants”—Fortune 500 […]
In eco-friendly Asheville, you might think it would be difficult to fill a room with people who haven’t seen Al Gore’s green blockbuster An Inconvenient Truth. But visiting global-warming skeptic Marlo Lewis found it easy enough during his April 11 lecture at the Grove Park Inn. All opposed: Mario Lewis, a senior fellow at the […]
There are so many local events scheduled to celebrate Earth Day this year, you might need a wilderness retreat to unwind by the time it’s all over. Here’s a roundup of what our local “green scene” has in store to honor everybody’s favorite blue-green spinning sphere. • Living the green life: A host of local […]
