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Giuseppe Arcimboldo - Rudolf II of
Habsburg as Vertumnus
(this is a Google Art Project image) |
Cowspiracy: TheSustainability Secret is a 2014 documentary that was made with great skill by Keegan Kuhn
and Kip Andersen, despite their tight budget. While Kuhn operates the camera, Andersen demonstrates in
an engaging and sometimes humorous way just how bad animal agriculture is for
our planet. Though
Cowspiracy also touches
on the cruelty involved in intensive meat production, the filmmakers spend much more of their time trying to fathom why environmental groups like Greenpeace, Sierra
Club, and Rainforest Action Network won’t talk about the damage caused by humans’
burgeoning appetite for animal products.
As the film unfolds, Andersen carefully examines the facts
as though he too is learning about them, and he makes a convincing argument
that eating meat, dairy, and seafood doesn’t make for a sustainable world. You
can go to the film’s website to
find the studies and statistics cited, but here
are just a few of the environmental problems he mentions:
- Climate Change: According to reports from the United Nations
and the EPA, animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of
greenhouse gas emissions, whereas transportation contributes only 13%. In
2009 another source, Worldwatch, attributed 51% of all worldwide
greenhouse gas emissions to livestock and their byproducts.
- Depletion of Fresh Water: While fracking (hydraulic
fracturing) uses from 70-140 billion gallons of water annually, animal
agriculture uses between 34 and 76 trillion
gallons of water annually. The meat and dairy industries use 29% of the
world’s fresh water.
- Deforestation: Animal agriculture has been responsible for 91%
of Amazon destruction, and 136
million acres of
rainforest have been cleared in order to produce
meat.
- Threats to Ocean Ecosystems: Each year human beings take 90
million tons of fish from the world's oceans. For every pound of fish
caught for human consumption, 5 pounds of marine organisms are unintended
by-kill and are discarded.
These are serious numbers that will impress anyone concerned
about the fate of our planet. As a result Cowspiracy,
though it is likely to entertain and engage all viewers, speaks most directly
to environmental activists. (After all, if you don’t believe that the earth is
in peril, that climate change is a real threat caused by human activity, and
that endangered species should be protected from extinction, you are not likely
to be influenced by the studies and statistics cited.) And as the filmmakers
carefully make their fact-based argument about the negative effects of animal
agriculture, they also ask why so many environmental groups have a persistent blind
spot when it comes to recognizing these negative effects. In an attempt to
answer this question they arrange (or try to arrange) a series of interviews
with staff members of some of the nation’s largest environmental groups. Though
Andersen doesn’t flinch from asking tough questions, he often receives answers
that are unsatisfactory, which leads to a further set of questions:
1) Could environmental
groups have been bought off? Andersen tries to set up an interview with Greenpeace
staffers to talk with them about the effects of animal agriculture on the
environment, and Greenpeace staffers politely refuse – twice. Then Andersen goes to the Animal Agriculture
Alliance (AAA, “an industry-united, nonprofit organization that helps bridge
the communication gap between farm and fork”) to ask if AAA gives money to
environmental groups like Greenpeace. The AAA rep refuses to answer this
question, and the interview is then terminated. Shortly afterward, the film’s
financial backer calls to say that, “due to growing controversial subject
matter,” they will have to pull out. The mysteries of the film’s loss of
funding and why Greenpeace would not speak about animal agriculture on-camera are never
solved.
2)
Could environmental
activists be afraid for their lives? Andersen speaks with the Executive
Director of Rainforest Action Network, who says it’s hard to determine the
single largest cause of rainforest destruction. But Leila Salazar Lopez at
Amazon Watch says that animal agriculture (i.e., clearing land to graze animals
and to grow genetically modified corn and soy as feed) is the major driver of
rainforest destruction. Then she cites the number of activists
who have died in Brazil for saying so. Perhaps fear and concern over physical survival keeps
some activists from speaking out about animal agriculture, and Andersen says he
had to pause and consider his own safety before deciding to continue making the
film.
3) Could environmental
groups be afraid of legal consequences? Andersen interviews Howard Lyman, a
former cattle rancher who was sued by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
for talking about “mad cow” disease on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Lyman reminds
Andersen that animal activists and environmentalists are at the top of the
FBI’s domestic terrorist list, and he said it took five years and hundreds of
thousands of dollars to extricate himself from suits filed by the cattle
industry. The possibility of being embroiled in a lawsuit or being labeled a
domestic terrorist is daunting, and the filmmakers again consider dropping their
project, but Andersen decides that “either you live for something or die for
nothing” and goes on.
4) Could environmental
groups be afraid to alienate their membership base? Michael Pollan tells
Andersen that the big environmental groups are membership organizations and
can’t challenge that which is dear to people. Dr. Will Tuttle compares the avoidance
of this issue by Greenpeace and other groups to the dynamics at work in a
dysfunctional family – the real problem is the one thing no one wants to talk
about.
Cowspiracy shines a very unflattering light on some of the
biggest and most important environmental groups in the country, but the film
isn’t just about environmental groups and individual activists who don’t want
to look at uncomfortable truths. Andersen also interviews committed
environmentalists who agree with the film’s premise. These include Dr. Richard
Oppenlander, Michael Pollan, and Dr. Will Tuttle. And the film’s website links to other groups
that acknowledge the environmental impact of eating meat:
2) Newly released recommendations from the U.S. Dietary
Guidelines Advisory Committee include the
call for reduced meat consumption, in
part because of the negative environmental impact of animal agriculture.
Cowspiracy makes a convincing argument thoughtfully and
engagingly. The filmmakers conclude that, in a world with a burgeoning human
population, worsening climate change, significant species extinction, and huge
inequalities and disparities of wealth, a meat-based diet is a selfish luxury. That’s
one of the best arguments I’ve heard for adopting a plant-based diet.
