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 [...]

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.

Voluntary conservation begins at home

No free parking

Based on my long experience examining and reporting on Asheville’s dance with parking spaces and lots and decks, and based on recent reading, I now question the development rules we are using which require developers to provide parking for new structures. While provision for parking SEEMS to be a solution, it has proven to be the problem in cities across the country.

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 [...]

White roofs

Now that our federal government has decided to rejoin the “reality-based community” (as a Bush administration flack disparagingly referred to those of us who prefer fact to flim-flam), we are hearing straight talk about climate change. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu dropped in to visit with the most trusted reporter in America, Jon Stewart, and mentioned [...]

We can move away from parking and traffic. Now.

Here’s a short video that explains how NYC transformed a jammed city street into a public space and reduced traffic while increasing parking availability by eliminating cars. We can do this in Asheville, too.

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]

Cecil Bothwell’s record of community service

• Joined Clamshell Alliance, opposing Seabrook Nuclear Power Station, 1978-1979 • Created and ran Rush Creek Community recycling program (Black Mountain), 1983-2001 • Co-founded and served as first president of the Asheville animal rights group, 1985 • Produced and recorded EarthSongs, a series of radio spots combining music, poetry to deliver environmental messages, 1988 • [...]