Yvon Chouinard on Meateater Podcast

[noharleyyet]

Time for a semi non sequitur what-aboutism for my esteemed colleague Ben Lamb w/out digging up the clima-change clusterfarque.

 

[Kiwi]

Interesting guy. Never heard of him but enjoyed the podcast. His comments on the cultural changes in New Zealand are interesting, many people here would agree with him.

 

[Trial153]

Plan on listening this week

 

[MTGomer]

 

[44hunter45]

Yawn. I remember when they used to talk about gear and have biologists on. Now they sit in a circle and talk about how they feel.

 

[OREGONCODY]

As I drive to and from work each day past about 100,000 acres of cotton fields, I wonder if he really is trying to "make" a difference on some of his agenda items, or trying to "look" like he is making a difference.

Having 650 farmers in India growing 1 to 2 acre fields of low impact cotton isn't going to provide enough cotton to make one run of one style or size of socks.

Some of the cotton farms I drive by actually use wheat as a cover crop and plant the cotton into the wheat stubble. Some use underground drip irrigation systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to install but save hundreds of thousands of gallons of water each year. Lots have trimmed the number of machines needed to harvest the cotton from 3 or 4 tractors and machines to just 1 so the amount of fuel used is way less. Seems that there are some real steps that could be made in sustainable farming of cotton if a company like Patagonia would get behind some of these type of practices and encourage them instead of a few farmers in India farming 1 or 2 acres of cotton each.

That wouldn't work near as well as an agenda item or a talking point on a podcast though.

If all that's true, it seems like it's probably better overall for the environment to grow it domestically when you factor in the pollution caused by big freight ships burning all that used motor oil for fuel across the pacific. If I recall correctly, the worlds 10 biggest freight ships pollute more than all the world's cars combined. Plus, Yvonn also mentioned on the podcast how he wasn't a fan of all the "globalism" stuff. Seems like he isn't a fan of it until you crunch the numbers and realize its significantly less expensive to be able to say you pay workers a living wage when the cost of living for many of your employees is orders of magnitude less than what it would be if they all lived in the states.

I think he's got the right ideas and means well and is certainly more globally concious than most of big business, but I don't think he's much less of a hypocrite than the average person.

 

[Volk]

If all that's true, it seems like it's probably better overall for the environment to grow it domestically when you factor in the pollution caused by big freight ships burning all that used motor oil for fuel across the pacific. If I recall correctly, the worlds 10 biggest freight ships pollute more than all the world's cars combined. Plus, Yvonn also mentioned on the podcast how he wasn't a fan of all the "globalism" stuff. Seems like he isn't a fan of it until you crunch the numbers and realize its significantly less expensive to be able to say you pay workers a living wage when the cost of living for many of your employees is orders of magnitude less than what it would be if they all lived in the states.

I think he's got the right ideas and means well and is certainly more globally concious than most of big business, but I don't think he's much less of a hypocrite than the average person.

Listened to his interview twice. I met Yvonne in the mid 80’s climbing in California and spoke with him a bit. Nicer guy back then but money often changes people

He’s a billionaire who closed down his US production and moved Patagonia production to China using underpaid Chinese slave labor with zero rights to make more money. Patagonia has a huge carbon footprint.

Flies all over the world in his private jets to lecture others to reduce their carbon footprint

Heck of a nice human

Hates technology but sells over priced highly technical clothes to make money

Patagonia donates millions of dollars a year to anti hunting organizations.

Hates the US constitution that allowed a man like him that started with very little means to become wildly rich.


People suck up to him now because he is very rich


Doesn’t like to be told what to do but loves to criticize others’ behavior

Definitely a hypocrite now