The Green Scene

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 […]

Community bike shop faces possible shut-down

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 […]

The Green Scene

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 […]

The Green Scene

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 […]

The Green Scene

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 […]

The Green Scene

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 […]

Seeing green

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 […]