The thing that keeps me up at night about this story is that it was so very unusual for this particular example to have come to light that you have to imagine there’s tons of these sites across Texas and around the US
I really like that this explores the ethical dynamics to using the name Patagonia beyond US trademark law.
National Public Radio offered fine climate reporting recently, airing a 19-minute podcast on May 24 that challenged the notion that the Trump administration’s hostility to climate action makes progress impossible. buff.ly/1k3gkYV
For people working to address climate change in the U.S., the last year has been a hard one. The Trump administration has been rolling back rules and regulations aimed at reducing planet-warming…
Re: Patagonia v. Pattie Gonia
I spoke with a trademark attorney and two scholars of Indigenous Patagonian history to understand both the legal and ethical question everyone is asking.
The answers are way more complex than social media is making them out to be.
Imagine sending your kid to your neighborhood elementary school, and then learning the whole thing was built on a former fracking waste site.
Now imagine the people who built it telling you it's perfectly safe, but refusing to release any hard evidence.
Bonkers story from @saulelbein.bsky.social
NPR’s climate desk was disbanded as part of broader budget cuts management said were necessary after the loss of federal funding. But NPR’s “commitment to climate journalism has not changed,” NPR spokesperson Juliet Barbara told Sammy Roth.
Emily Atkin
Emily Atkin
Homeowners are livid they weren’t told what their properties were built on. The developers claim it’s all perfectly safe.
There's no conspiracy — just another newsroom making a poor decision.
buff.ly
I so appreciate Emily's work here. This is exactly the type of analysis that I have been missing in watching news of this unfold on social media. Excellent and informative!
Covering Climate Now
Start community engagement *before* you've lost the people.
“So I think we’ll just be taking a look at our project and see how we may be able to support folks that are voluntarily participating and be able to bring the community a lot of the benefits these projects can provide,” the developer said.
Among the cited reasons were “vast use of farmland converted to industrial solar,” construction impacts on busing routes and “unreasonable diminishment of farmland and trees.”
Re: Patagonia v. Pattie Gonia
I spoke with a trademark attorney and two scholars of Indigenous Patagonian history to understand both the legal and ethical question everyone is asking.
The answers are way more complex than social media is making them out to be.
New: The Shapiro administration confirmed that some of its conversations with Amazon about data centers have been covered by a non-disclosure agreement, after radio program Allegheny Front followed up on my reporting.
Listen to our full conversation about the Shapiro admin and Amazon.
So even if there's an assumption that the goods are associated with Pattie Gonia, there's also a good chance that there's a simultaneous association of the same goods with Patagonia. That carries brand risk - it's unlikely to cost them the mark, but it does have real risk of weakening the mark.
This is a sharp and interesting piece
This is exactly the kind of analysis I've been looking for: not just what does the law say, but what are the larger dynamics involved.
