Discover the Bliss of Asheville's Green Consciousness ... and Help Us Raise It to a New Height!
Green Networking
Green Drinks Meets Every Friday Night @ 6:30 pm at BoBo Gallery 22 Lexington Avenue "...Please join us for
Asheville's only Green Social Hour. Networking starts at 6:30 so don't be late and please, bring a friend..." Details
Green Social Networking Site
Bioneers
"... is a forum for connecting the environment, health, social justice, and spirit within a broad progressive framework...."
Bioneers was conceived to conduct programs in the conservation of biological and cultural diversity, traditional farming practices, and environmental restoration. Our vision of environment encompasses the natural landscape, cultivated landscape, biodiversity, cultural diversity, watersheds, community economics, and spirituality. Bioneers seeks to unite nature, culture and spirit in an Earth-honoring vision, and create economic models founded in social justice.
Restoration addresses the premise that "sustainability" is problematic in the context of an environment that is already depleted. As Paul Hawken has noted, sustainability is simply the midpoint between destruction and restoration. The goal of Bioneers is restoration, addressing the interdependent array of economics, jobs, ecologies, cultures, and communities.
Bioneers are biological pioneers who are working with nature to heal nature and ourselves. They have peered deep into the heart of living systems to devise strategies for restoration based on nature's own operating instructions. They come from many cultures and perspectives, and all walks of life.
Bioneers are scientists and artists, gardeners and economists, activists and public servants, architects and ecologists, farmers and journalists, priests and shamans, policymakers and citizens. They are everyday people committed to preserving and supporting the future of life on Earth. They herald a dawning Age of Restoration founded in natural principles of kinship, interdependence, cooperation, reciprocity, and community.
Uniting nature, culture, and spirit, Bioneers embody a change of heart - a spiritual connection with the living world that is grounded in social justice. Their pragmatic strategies effectively address many of our most pressing ecological and societal challenges.
Above all, Bioneers represent a culture of solutions. Their stories demonstrate that just as people have created the environmental and social problem we face, people can solve them - through a reciprocal partnership with nature. Over and over, they show how great a difference the actions of one individual can make.
Discover the Bliss of Sustainable Behavior and Living Green
Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing "...Our consumption patterns are threatening to outstrip Earth's ability to
support humanity and other species.... While conventional marketing can
help create public awareness, social marketing identifies and overcomes
barriers to long-lasting behavior change.
This ground-breaking book is the primary resource for the emerging new field of community-based social marketing, and an invaluable guide for anyone involved in designing public education programs with the goal of promoting sustainable behavior, from recycling and energy efficiency, to alternative transportation..."
The Everything Green Living Book "...What an excellent resource this book is for anyone who is seeking ways to make a positive impact on the environment. The media today is saturated with doomsday news, which often leaves me feeling like there's nothing I can do as an individual. It's great to have a resource that provides so many ideas and so much information about positive things we can ALL do to help protect our environment...."
The New Natural House Book "...one of two books that I recommend when people ask me which books I feel have helped me the most while working on my house renovation....it covers material that you normally need five or ten books to cover. Alternative building methods, energy efficient lighting, indoor pollutants, color and light, non polluting paint, lighting design, sacred spaces, etc. and it is done in a thoughtful helpful way..... "
Easy Green Living "...Renée Loux demonstrates that being green at home is easy, affordable, and better in every sense of the word. She discusses the daily choices we face that can keep the home, personal care, and beauty routines free of toxins. She exposes the dirt on cleaning products and common hazardous ingredients and reveals her recommendations for greener options, including her "Green Thumb Guides" for choosing non-toxic, eco-smart, and human-friendly products...."
Click on each of the dozens of categories to the left to uncover what makes the Asheville area so vital, so intriguing and so, well, UTTERLY BLISSFUL!
Asheville Interior Designer's
Creative High Style Recycling...
"... In fact, there isn’t much in
Long’s house that hasn’t been
reused or reconsidered,
rescued or reconfigured..."
Interior designer Kathryn Long takes a two-room, mountainside house through a series of rehabs and fills it with heirloom antiques and clever finds of all kinds
Wander antiques malls and Saturday morning auctions and you’ll find veteran hunters like Kathryn Long, for whom green principles like “reuse,” “recycle,” and other conservation-minded building blocks are, quite frankly, old hat. The interior designer and longtime owner of Ambiance Interiors in downtown Asheville cites finds ranging from an oversized kitchen hutch originally built into a house in Virginia to two clawfoot tubs donated by a demo company in Hendersonville, both of which now reside in her renovated cottage.
“I’ll find old vases, furniture, dish towels—linens of all kinds—and put them to use in my own house. It’s all part of being my mother’s daughter,” she explains, adding that she’d go with her to estate auctions that were held in “fabulous old mansions in Asheville. I watched as she spotted pieces that, for one reason or another, had been discarded. She’d find a use for these things when others couldn’t.”.
.....I n fact, there isn’t much in Long’s house that hasn’t been reused or reconsidered, rescued or reconfigured, and the structure itself is no exception. The no-frills, circa-1950s building was just 800 square feet when her family bought it in 1970 to use as a guesthouse. “When we found it, it was almost like an outbuilding, comprising two rooms with a single door entry,” says Long...."
Warren Wilson College's Virtual Green Walkabout
at the Environmental Leadership Center
Sustainable Asheville
"... We promote sustainability in our community through education and networking. We provide opportunities to share insights and creative solutions for living interdependently within our local and global ecosystems....We help individuals organize discussion courses on sustainability topics including Voluntary Simplicity, Choices for Sustainable Living, Global Warming, Healthy Children Healthy Planet,Discovering a Sense of Place, Globalization and Its Critics and Exploring Deep Ecology in their neighborhoods, workplaces and centers of faith...."
Raising the Consciousness Via Annual Expos
The Southern Energy & Environment Expo
"... held at the Western N.C. Agricultural Center in Fletcher NC, is an annual event designed to showcase renewable energy and sustainable economics in a context of responsible environmental stewardship. By working together in a cooperative spirit, we CAN make a difference for the future of our children and our planet..."
Raising the Consciousness
of Building Green
Western North Carolina Green Building Council "... non-profit organization whose mission is to promote environmentally sustainable and health conscious building practices through community education.
Our main goal is to educate homeowners, builders and architects on the benefits of:
* creating energy efficient buildings
* increased use of alternative energy sources
* sustainable development
* using green building materials
* decreasing use of natural resources
* preserving topsoil and trees
* reducing storm water runoff"
Worldwide Call For Entries to
Raise Green Conciouness
Go Green Installation at the
Main Street Gallery in Groton NY
"...Artists and general public worldwide can participate by sending in handwritten or typed words in any language about the environment. The paper can be either rolled, folded, scrap, colored or uneven preferably recycled and no larger than 8.5" x 11" ((22 cm x 28 cm). Drawings or photographs can be part of the work. No painting will be accepted...." $10 fee. Deadline May 2.
AshevilleBliss.com Green Bookstore
Discover the Bliss of Green Tourism... and Living Green
Special Places to Stay Green Places to Stay: From Beach Huts to Eco-Chic Hotels, All Over the World (Alastair Sawday's Special Places to Stay Green Places to Stay) (Paperback) ".... Numerous places call themselves "eco" or "green," yet standards differ enormously throughout the world. This guide features those very special places around the world that also go the extra mile to make sure your vacation is an ecologically responsible one. Tree houses in rainforests, white pods in snow fields, fair-trade tented camps, floating eco-lodges, organic mountain farms, eco-chic hotels--we've inspected and liked them all...."
Eco-Tourism in Appalachia ".... The central Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina have a lot to offer tourists: nature treks, farmhouse bed-and-breakfasts, birding, historical hikes and more. Yet many of these attractions are not environmentally friendly. In this volume, environmental activist Fritsch and environmental writer Johannsen urge local communities to gain control of their own finances and local governments to regulate tourism business practices so that the region's resources will no longer be exploited by visitors. The authors encourage "responsible tourism," exposing abusive practices and offering steps to change them.
Natural Remodeling for the Not So Green Home "... To have a home that’s more in touch with the earth, you don’t have to start from the ground up! It’s possible—and more environmentally friendly—to go green by renovating an existing home.... ven the least mechanically inclined person can make a difference in his or her dwelling…and to the planet.... a remarkable book—packed with information and photos, and the first ever in full color to cover the subject. It’s lush and exquisite to look at... "
It's Easy Being Green ".... What a great little book! It's chock full of information and even created out of recycled paper! As someone who wants to 'go green,' but doesn't want a lot of long explanations and hard to understand terms, this book was perfect for me!..."
A Greener Life "... a comprehensive guide to being more self-sufficient in everyday life. Informative, witty and practical, this inspirational book shows readers how to adopt a more natural and harmonious way of life regardless of the size of their home or garden. Readers will learn to grow their own vegetables, use alternative energies, learn to knit, use natural paints, keep livestock and bees, and much more...."
Green Living "... I have rarely learned as much from one source in so short a time. Global warming, saving energy at home, reducing fuel consumption, chemicals in food, changing our energy habits for a healthier future, growing green in the workplace and the community, and teaching our children the principles of Green Living are only a few of the topics covered in an interesting and attention-grabbing manner, helped along with sidebars and illuminating cartoons...."
