Agenda for a Shrinking Planet

A discussion of personal choices and public policy options that address the population boom and resource crash we face in the next 30 years, with an emphasis on what you can do in your life today. [Delivered as a talk at the True Nature Country Fair in Barnardsville, North Carolina, Sept. 26, 2009] – Cecil [...]

Labor Day, 2009

The meaning of Labor Day has changed for me over the years. In my childhood, school always started on the Tuesday after Labor Day, so it very clearly marked the end of summer vacation and the beginning of another great year in public school, renewing friendships or making new ones and coming to terms with [...]

The science behind my campaign platform

“We need to rethink our transportation and agricultural systems, our city planning and water and sewer …. So many of those things have been designed for the climate of the past 100 years and not for the climate we’ll see in the next 100 years.”
—Jane Lubchenco, a Harvard-trained marine ecologist and new chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

More thoughts on the Basilica of St. Lawrence

Opposition to the hotel proposed for the site in front of the Basilica has focused on the view of that grand church and how it might be affected by placement of a massive structure in its face. But I’ve discovered what I consider to be an equally iconic view that will likely be demolished by [...]

Three strikes and you’re not funded

When we look at the effect of crime on our community it’s helpful to focus on the damage done rather than let ourselves be distracted by emotion and opinion regarding the nature of individual crimes. That is to say, there are people who urinate in the street and there are people who commit financial fraud—depending on one’s sensibilities the first may disgust, but the second frequenty causes meaningful harm.

Energy challenge

I’ve been thinking about my recent post Keeping Down With The Joneses, in which I report on a project that uses our innate inclination to be “normal” to shape conservation habits.

Keeping down with the Joneses

I’m always on the lookout for non-coercive ways to encourage resource conservation and I’ve just learned about a doozie. Psychological research into what motivates people to save has made great strides, in, of all places, hotel rooms. Hotel guests have become familiar with cards that encourage re-use of towels, or that suggest not asking for [...]

The filing speech video

A new spirit of patriotism: my filing speech

I delivered this speech on the steps of the Buncombe County Board of Elections after filing as a candidate for Asheville City Council, on Monday, June 6.
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I have just filed as a candidate for a seat on the Asheville City Council. I do so in part as an answer to President Barack Obama’s call for a new spirit of patriotism. It is also partly my answer to the first presidential speech I can remember hearing as a child, when another young president suggested we not ask what our country could do for us, but to ask what we could do for our country.

[photo by Edwin Shelton]

Money from your tap

Asheville City Council candidate Cecil Bothwell has advanced a revised plan for Asheville water rates aimed at encouraging conservation. [click on the header to read more]