Yvon Chouinard develops new salmon fishery Patagonia Provisions

Skeena River at Telegraph Point. Image: Mly

Yvon Chouinard, a pioneer of "clean climbing," founder of Patagonia Inc., eco clothing innovator, and self-described "dirt bag" has now developed a salmon fishery called Patagonia Provisions. According to the Wall Street Journal:

The salmon is caught in British Columbia's Skeena River, using traditional equipment that the company describes as "First Nations fish wheels and dip nets." Chouinard has so far poured $1.3 million into this curious experiment. He isn't sure when he'll make it back. "I can't help myself," he says. "I just want to show the fishing industry how it can be done."

Quote: Comedy versus illness

“Comedy saved my life,” said Saranne Rothberg, who started therapeutic-humor nonprofit ComedyCures after using humor to help her cope with and recover from stage-four breast cancer. “My love of comedy and laughing kept me positive, so I could fight every battle I had to fight physically and emotionally.”

At Therapeutic Humor Conference, Laughter Medicine Is Serious Business - Wired

Rheumatoid arthritis is associated with obesity

Is the typical modern diet a factor in the development of rheumatoid arthritis? Image: iStockphotoHealth, Medical, and Science Updates reports on a Mayo Clinic research study that revealed over half of the increase in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) cases seen in women from 1985–2007 is related to the increase in obesity during that time. While “the exact nature of the link between obesity and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis is not clear,” the relationship to obesity suggests RA may be - at least in part – due to the typical modern diet. 

Not only is RA more common in persons with a high body mass index (BMI), according to a study by the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, it is also more severe in when obesity is present. Furthermore, persons RA and obesity are more likely to have associated diseases (co-morbidities) such as "hypertension, diabetes mellitus and chronic pulmonary disease."

In a review article New York Medical College, the authors note that although RA is viewed primarily as "chronic progressive inflammatory joint disorder," the disease also affects other organ systesms: 

Cardiovascular manifestations of RA include predilection for accelerated atherosclerosis and endothelial dysfunction resulting in coronary artery disease (CAD), stroke, congestive heart failure, and peripheral arterial disease. ... Other manifestations include pericarditis, myocarditis, and vasculitis.

Although the cause of RA is unknown, dietary grains may be a factor. In medicalese, from a study by Dr. Loren Cordain and associates:

By eliminating dietary elements, particularly lectins, which adversely influence both enterocyte and lymphocyte structure and function, it is proposed that the peripheral antigenic stimulus (both pathogenic and dietary) will be reduced and thereby result in a diminution of disease symptoms in certain patients with RA.

The marketing of Crisco

Convincing homemakers to swap butter and lard for a new fat created in a factory would be quite a task, so the new form of food needed a new marketing strategy. Never before had Procter & Gamble -- or any company for that matter -- put so much marketing support or advertising dollars behind a product. They hired the J. Walter Thompson Agency, America's first fullservice advertising agency staffed by real artists and professional writers. Samples of Crisco were mailed to grocers, restaurants, nutritionists, and home economists. 

Procter & Gamble's claims about Crisco touching the lives of every American proved eerily prescient. The substance (like many of its imitators) was 50 percent trans fat, and it wasn't until the 1990s that its health risks were understood.

Drew Ramsey, MD & Tyler Graham - How Vegetable Oils Replaced Animal Fats in the American Diet

Heat on the rooftops

NASA Earth Observatory

NASA Earth Observatory has an image and temperature map of rooftops in a segment of Queens, New York. The temperature on dark roofs "routinely exceed what you might find in the desert.” According to Stuart Gaffin:

Cities have been progressively darkening the landscape for hundreds of years. City roofs are traditionally black because asphalt and tar are waterproof, tough, ductile and were easiest to apply to complex rooftop geometries. But from a climate and urban heat island standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to install bright, white roofs. That's why we say, ‘Bright is the new black.’” 

A vegetated roof is even cooler:

Gaffin and colleagues compared the surface temperature of black, white, and “green” (vegetated) roofs and found that black roofs can be up to 30°C (54°F) hotter than a green or white roof. Installing a plant-covered roof is the ultimate technique to combat urban heat because it adds a combination of slight shading and a lot of cooling moisture.

Related Links

• Carlisle's Roof Garden
• Greenroofs 101 from Greenroofs.com

SUNDAY PALEO final weekly post

Arches National Park

Writing the weekly SUNDAY PALEO has been fun, but it has also somewhat tedious. Instead of focusig on the delivery, searching through a number of items to find those that may be of interest has become the focus. Furthermore, having a regular schedule can work against the spirit of the PaleoTerran blog: the sharing of ideas or events as they come along. I have also noticed that people do not search for SUNDAY PALEO. Why would they? We usually search for specific items at the time we are interested.

Thus, this will be the final SUNDAY PALEO on the PaleoTerran blog. This will free up my schedule and allow posting driven by interest and the time available. 

Thanks for your support of PaleoTerran.

Dr. John

Gout: the “disease of kings”

“First identified by the Egyptians in 2640 BC,” gout has been known as “the unwalkable disease,” the “disease of kings,” and a disease of affluence. Mark Sisson has a nice review of gout and its suspected causes and prevention. Mark’s conclusion:

But perhaps the best way to avoid gout? Get healthy. Eat well. Exercise intensely from time to time. Avoid refined sugar. Avoid obesity, hyperinsulinemia, and metabolic syndrome.

Carnivory shortened breast-feeding periods during human evolution

A recent news report on the impact of carnivory in human evolution begins with a blunt statement:

Carnivory is behind the evolutionary success of humankind. 

Hunting is known to have been a crucial event in human evolution. According to Science Daily:

Learning to hunt was a decisive step in human evolution. Hunting necessitated communication, planning and the use of tools, all of which demanded a larger brain. At the same time, adding meat to the diet made it possible to develop this larger brain.

However, developmental psychologist Elia Psouni, lead author of a new report published in PLoS ONE, points to another crucial role of carnivory:

... the strong connection between meat eating and the duration of breast-feeding... Eating meat enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births, to be shortened. This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution."

Learn more at Science Daily and PLoS ONE.

The mission of Planetary Resources

Planetary Resources’ mission is clear: apply commercial, innovative techniques to explore space. We will develop low-cost robotic spacecraft to explore the thousands of resource-rich asteroids within our reach. We will learn everything we can about them, then develop the most efficient capabilities to deliver these resources directly to both space-based and terrestrial customers. Asteroid mining may sound like fiction, but it’s just science.

Planetary Resources

Carlisle's Roof Garden

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Planetary Resources Inc. - Mission to the Asteroids

It should be no surprise to PaleoTerran readers that the extraction of scarce resources from the Earth leads to planetary scarring and environmental degradation. Tomorrow, a new company called Planetary Resources, Inc. will be announcing their mission, or missions, to search for precious metals in asteroids. According to their site:

We're preparing for the unveiling of Planetary Resources, Inc. on April 24.
 Join us to learn about our mission and how we plan to revolutionize current space exploration and help ensure humanity's prosperity for generations to come.

According to Wired:

A group of wealthy, adventurous entrepreneurs will announce on Apr. 24 a new venture called Planetary Resources, Inc., which plans to send swarms of robots to space to scout asteroids for precious metals and set up mines to bring resources back to Earth, in the process adding trillions of dollars to the global GDP, helping ensure humanity’s prosperity and paving the way for the human settlement of space.

The definition of the word chutzpah according to Dictionary.com: audacity; nerve

Yeah, that's about right. 

Quote: The environment & the generational balance of power

Attending the first ever White House Summit on Environmental Education shed light on what’s wrong with the environmental movement: the generational balance of power. While I am extremely honored to have been invited to attend, I cannot help but be disappointed that there were not enough young environmental leaders sitting at the table next to leaders of government, business, academia and NGOs.

Mitch Lowenthal - Environmental Education – It’s more than naming trees!