Small is beautiful — and green. And Barry Bialik’s “compact cottages” lend visceral meaning to the concept of shrinking your carbon footrpint. “Everyone’s fascinated by tiny houses,” says the south Asheville resident. And if some “green building” amounts to a mere marketing strategy, Bialik notes, he provides a pedigree. “We can build to NC HealthyBuilt-certified […]
Author: Susan Andrew
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Mountaintop Removal Roadshow comes to AB Tech Nov. 17
A public event at A-B Tech’s Simpson Auditorium November 17 will examine the environmentally destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. The Mountaintop Removal Road Show features a graphic 20-minute slide show about the impacts of mountaintop removal on neighboring communities and the environment, using recent aerial photos of decapitated Appalachian mountains. The program will begin at 12:30 p.m.
Photo by Robert Llewellyn, courtesy of Southwings
Green Scene: An outside job
Jim Reaves’ saga is a classic American success story. The eldest of eight children born to a sharecropper in rural Horry County, S.C., he’s gone from being the first person in his family to attend college to leading the world’s largest forest-research organization in a field dominated by white men. Leaving his job as director […]
Green Scene: On second thought…
On the heels of a visit by acclaimed environmental author Bill McKibben, Warren Wilson College’s Environmental Leadership Center will host a free public lecture by Lester Brown, whom The Washington Post has called "one of the world's most influential thinkers” (see box, “Bursting the Bubble”). Several decades earlier, the Library of Congress noted that his […]
Photo essay: Area residents demonstrate at CTS site
Late Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 19, commuters along Mills Gap Road in Skyland were presented with signs of life from the usually desolate gate to the former CTS of Asheville. Once an electroplating plant, the CTS site is widely believed to be the source of chemical contamination of soils on the grounds, as well as in the water wells of neighboring residents.
Photos by Susan Andrew and Katie Damien
Green Scene: Gimme shelter
"Cheap fossil fuel is the central feature of our modern economy — it explains so much of how we live," acclaimed environmentalist Bill McKibben told an overflow crowd of some 700 listeners at Warren Wilson College recently. "The fossil-fuel industry is the most profitable industry in the history of the world. It's necessary to build […]
Sierra Club Executive Director teams up with local climate scientist for talk at UNCA Oct. 21
Michael Brune, executive director of the nation’s oldest environmental group, the Sierra Club, will discuss global environmental challenges at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, at UNC Asheville’s Humanities Lecture Hall. Joining Brune will be Tom Peterson, from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, who will give an introductory talk on the nature of climate change.
Over 700 turn out to hear Bill McKibben speak at Warren Wilson
An overflow crowd estimated at over 700 turned out to hear Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth and leader of an international grassroots climate change movement known as 350.org, give a talk at Warren Wilson College on October 6, 2010. The spillover crowd was able to hear McKibben’s lecture outdoors, thanks to a sound system allowing those gathered outside the chapel to listen.
Down to earth
Tucked away near the bottom of the ballot, the Soil and Water Conservation District’s Board of Supervisors might not be on many voters’ radar. But if you own livestock or a working farm, are a builder or developer, or just someone who lives downstream from any of those activities — which covers a good many […]
Green Scene: When the dust settles
About 50 Western North Carolina residents made the trek to Charlotte Sept. 14 for a public hearing to consider whether coal ash (produced when coal is burned to generate electricity) should be regulated as hazardous waste. The hearing was one of eight being held nationwide by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as it considers — […]
Green Scene: Green and going
Bigger isn’t always better, especially when it comes to consuming finite resources. And amid the growing popularity of homes with a smaller carbon footprint, the WNC Green Building Council’s eighth annual Green Homes Tour will offer a look at some 20 environmentally friendly houses that are currently available (see box, “Take the Tour”). Slated for […]
We’re sorry
In a perhaps unintended act of irony, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency representatives offered bottled water, chocolates and rubber squeeze balls in the image of the Earth to neighbors of the contaminated former CTS site during a Sept. 9 community meeting. Don Rigger, a key official from the Region IV office in Atlanta, apologized for the […]
Green Scene: Building a movement
Bill McKibben thinks big. His 10/10/10 initiative, billed as a “global work party,” is intended to elicit “bold energy policies from our political leaders … on a scale that truly matters.” The goal, organizers say, is not to reduce global warming one project at a time but to send a pointed message to legislators about […]
EPA branch chief pledges CTS site will be cleaned up
In a perhaps unintended act of irony, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency representatives offered bottled water, chocolates and rubber squeeze balls in the image of the Earth to neighbors of the contaminated former CTS site during a Sept. 9 community meeting.
Don Rigger, a key official from the Region IV office in Atlanta, apologized for the agency’s past mistakes and assured the long-suffering neighbors of the Mills Gap Road site that it will be cleaned up — though he stopped short of saying when.
Green Scene: Testing the waters
On Sept. 1, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it’s considering proposing the former CTS electroplating plant in south Asheville and a related Mills Gap Road site for possible inclusion in the National Priorities (Superfund) List. Area residents have reported numerous health problems, and Xpress spoke recently with one of them, Gabe Dunsmith, who’s […]
Some enchanted evening with Symphony in the Park
It doesn’t get much better than this: a breezy late summer evening, clear skies, a world-class new park, and the Asheville Symphony Orchestra ready with a program of familiar music, all with no admission ticket required. (photos by Jerry Nelson)
Recovery Act brings greenbacks and green industry to Asheville
Local partners and federal officials joined USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station staff Tuesday, Aug. 31, for a tour of The Boggs Collective: an Asheville-based, sustainability-oriented fine woodworking operation which received a grant of nearly $100,000 from the Land-of-Sky Regional Council’s WNC Forest Products Cooperative Marketing Project. That project is funded by federal dollars from the Recovery Act. The Southern Research Station and Land-of-Sky Regional Council sponsored the tour, which was conducted by The Boggs Collective co-owners Melanie Moeller and Brian Boggs.
photo courtesy of The Boggs Collective
Green Scene
You may have seen him on the river, long hair graying, beat-up canoe piled high with discarded tires and trash. Perhaps you wondered what he was up to and then just proceeded on your way. Or maybe you jumped to some conclusion regarding the man’s mental status. Fact is, every river needs someone like Scott […]
Green Scene: Looking to shrink your carbon footprint?
As we contemplate how Western North Carolina fits into the big picture of climate change and what we can do about it, acclaimed environmental author Bill McKibben recently suggested we connect the dots between some basic facts: • According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has one of its main offices and research […]
Winging it
Mountain Xpress reported back in June on local wildlife-rehabilitation expert Sherry Johnson’s trip to the Gulf Coast to help clean up oiled birds and other wildlife directly impacted by the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster (see “Hands Across the Sand,” June 23 Xpress). But when Johnson and her husband tried to deliver the veterinary supplies donated […]
The road less traveled: Celebrating roadless wild areas this week
Unprotected wild places get some attention this week, as August 7-15 is National Roadless Recreation Week. To celebrate our region’s remaining wild and roadless areas and raise awareness about their value, the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition invites folks to hike the crest of the Craggy Mountains along the Mountains to Sea Trail, this Tuesday from 8:30 – noon. Hikers should experience great views into the Craggy Mountain Roadless Area/Wilderness Study Area as the trail ascends around the Craggy Pinnacle; then enjoy a cool descent into the northern hardwood forest in an area that has been recommended for federal wilderness designation.