Friday, 22 Oct 2004

Don't Get Mad, Get Yvon

Yvon Chouinard, head of Patagonia, chats with Grist

Patagonia, purveyor of high-quality outdoor duds and gear, is making some waves in the outdoorsy community with its Vote the Environment project, which urges customers to register to vote and make the environment their No. 1 issue at the ballot box. The initiative has angered some customers, but Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is not known for running his company -- still privately owned -- based on what other people think. He talks about the radical business principles of growing slowly and operating sustainably in a chat with Amanda Griscom Little -- in Main Dish, today on the Grist Magazine website.

That's the Story of the Hurricane

Global warming could intensify hurricanes, some climate experts say

After this year's unusually devastating hurricane season, many folks who study hurricanes were quick to reassure the public (and Congress) that normal climatic fluctuations, not global warming, were to blame. But at a press conference yesterday, a group of climatologists, including several present and past members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the hurricanes that hit Florida, Haiti, the Caribbean, and (for the first time ever) the South Atlantic -- not to mention the 20 typhoons in the Pacific -- were consistent with the extreme weather events that global climate change is expected to make more frequent in the future. Though they stopped short of drawing a direct causal link between this year's hurricanes and global warming, the scientists warned strongly against complacency in the face of what stands to be a lethal and expensive pattern. How expensive? Matthias Weber of Swiss Re, the world's second-largest insurer, said the insurance industry covered $150 billion in weather-related losses this year, up from a yearly average of $4 billion in the 1980s.

Mean Green Pegeen

Mayor of Gainesville, Fla., chews the fat on green issues big and small

Grist readers quizzed good Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan about tree cover, land-use policies, and renewable energy. She expounds on these topics as well as dispensing considerable wisdom on good strategy for activists, Florida political races, and the best course of study to prepare for local political work -- in InterActivist, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Cross Purposes

Prominent Brit bishop booted from enviro group for advocating nuclear

England's Reverend Hugh Montefiore -- member of the Church of England, former Bishop of Birmingham, and long-time champion of the environment -- has been forced to resign from the board of Friends of the Earth for arguing that nuclear power is the only viable way to avoid the oncoming catastrophe of global warming. Montefiore's argument appeared in an article in The Tablet, a Catholic weekly. He is the second prominent environmentalist to spark controversy recently with the same argument, the first being James Lovelock, independent scientist and father of the Gaia hypothesis. The arguments against nuclear power are familiar to any environmentalist, primarily focusing on the waste it leaves behind. But these arguments, Montefiore says, "do not stand up to objective assessment." The danger posed by climate change is too great, and renewable sources like wind and solar simply cannot scale up fast enough to avert tragedy. "The future of the planet," he said, "is more important than membership of Friends of the Earth."

Fish 'n' Chicks

Study finds excessive mercury in 20 percent of women of childbearing age

A new Greenpeace-commissioned study on the correlation between fish consumption and levels of mercury in the body has produced interim results, and they may cause you to think twice about your next order of a tuna-salad sandwich. The study analyzed hair samples sent in by people, many of whom read about the study on the internet [cough Grist! cough], who also reported on their average monthly consumption of canned tuna, locally caught fish, and fresh or frozen fish sold in stores and restaurants. Hair samples from some 1,449 people were analyzed for the interim results; eventually the number will reach 5,000. Roughly 20 percent of participating women of child-bearing age had mercury levels exceeding U.S. EPA recommendations, as did one-third of those who consumed canned tuna at least four times a week. Mercury, you will recall, is a neurotoxin that does bad, bad things to fetuses and young children.