Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014)

Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path to sustainability.

Directors:

Kip Andersen (co-director), Keegan Kuhn (co-director)

Writers:

Kip Andersen (co-writer), Keegan Kuhn (co-writer)

Stars:

Lisa Agabian, Manucher Alemi, Lindsey Allen

Cast

Credited cast:
Lisa Agabian	...	Herself (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society)
Manucher Alemi	...	Himself (Department of Water Resources)
Lindsey Allen	...	Herself (Rainforest Action Network)
Kip Andersen	...	Himself (co-director)
Will Anderson	...	Himself (Greenpeace)
Deniz Bolbol	...	Herself (American Wild Horse)
Heather Cooley	...	Herself (Pacific Institute)
Kamyar Guivetchi	...	Himself (Department of Water Resources)
Bruce Hamilton	...	Himself (Sierra Club)
Susan Hartland	...	Herself (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society)
Michael Klaper	...	Himself (physician)
Howard Lyman	...	Himself
Demosthenes Maratos	...	Himself (Sustainability Institute)
Chad Nelsen	...	Himself (Surfrider Foundation)
Ann Notthoff	...	Herself (Natural Resources Defense Council)

Storyline

The World's largest environmental organizations are failing to address the single most destructive force facing the planet today. Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path to sustainability.

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Plot Keywords:

world | water scarcity | forest | greenhouse gas | food | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Instagram Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 September 2015 (Netherlands)

Also Known As:

Cowspiracy

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Co-director Kip Andersen became obsessed with (saving) the environment after seeing Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth (2006), eventually leading up to this documentary.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Himself (Sierra Club): The world's climate scientists tell us that the highest safe level of emissions would be around 350 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. We are already at 400. They tell us that the sort of savest we could hope to do without having perilous implications - as far as drought, famine, human conflict major, species extinction - would be about 2°C increase in temperature. We're rapidly approaching that, and with all the CO2 that's already in the atmosphere we're easily going exceed that. So, ...

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Connections

References An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

User Reviews

Courageous Eye-Opener to the #1 Environmental Problem: Animal Agriculture

This is a major movie event, a real eye opener, documenting why animal agriculture is the #1 contributor to greenhouse gases, the #1 environmental problem , the leading cause of rain forest destruction and habitat loss, creating massive amounts of untreated waste and using far more of our precious aquifers than if we all simply ate a plant-based diet.

It's not a message most meat eaters and dairy users want to hear, as it's not easy to eat vegan in a culture so oriented to meat consumption. And it's not a message environmental groups acknowledge, a mystery explored by this courageous film maker. After learning that over 1100 activists were murdered in Brazil after protesting conversion of rain forests to animal agriculture, he considered putting the lid on this project.

But it was too important not to get the message out, he realized. The answer to so many environmental problems is right in front of us. It costs nothing, can be implemented today and simply requires people to switch to a plant based diet, which could amply feed several times our current population with the same production as today.

One of the most startling statements of the film was this: even if we stopped all systems of transportation (cars, trains, trucks, planes etc.) and turned off our utilities, we would still have irreversible damage from global warming, so long as we continued to raise so many animals for food.

The take away from this film is, go ahead and conserve energy, put solar on your roof, change to LED light bulbs, minimize long trips. But first, switch to a plant-based diet.