The article is a bit of a tragedy in the broad scale. It shows just how hard it is to be environmentally conscious when you are serving the ... let's face it, the conspicuously consuming few.

If it is that hard to make "ethical" $250 parkas, how hard is it to make an "ethical" $20 parka?

There are also two links from the Patagonia site (http://www.patagonia.com/culture/yc_book.shtml?seepromo=home) for the NPR Day to Day broadcast on Yvon Chouinard.

I agree with odograph entirely. 250$ parkas are for the conspicuously wealthy. meanwhile the poor are left with vinyl slickers etc. When will healthy organic foods and healthy apparel make its way down to an price range affordable to the averge joe or jo-ann. and how about those even less well off??

the tipping point is drawing closer though.

Not to mention how TOXIC Paga-gucci fleece is anyway. Go ahead and google Antimony and polar fleece. Antimony is a toxic heavy metal used as a catalyst in the production of PET. Malden Mills Polar Fleece is made from recycled PET, Pata-gucci makes close out of polar-tec from malden mills.

These products leach antimony not only in the land fill but I read its also dermally sorbed.