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 sustaina... Read allFollow 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.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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- Self - Former U.S. Vice President
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A real open eyes, which make me search for sustainable food or a vegetarian..
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.
It asks a couple of simple questions, and finds answers that are so disturbing that it's the rare film that had an immediate impact on my behavior. Basically the film asks "how much does modern animal farming contribute to global warming and other pollution problems?" And the answer is, more than cars, trucks, planes and all other transportation combined. Maybe a LOT more depending on what metrics you use. It also asks, 'given these facts, why are no major environmental groups aggressively trying to change how we farm and eat, the way they're trying to change how we drive or power our houses? ' The answers are several and disturbing, and there's a bit of the thriller in how the filmmakers get sources to explain, or more chillingly suddenly clam up on camera as they realize what's being asked.
At times the film seems so personal and home-grown that I might have tended to dismiss it as the work of someone on the fringe, but doing some follow up reading it became clear that all this is pretty well grounded in solid science. (There are a some controversial claims here, but what becomes clear on further looking is that the basic points are hard to dismiss. For example, there's a review on here questioning the film's numbers about the greenhouse effect of methane. But if you go to the film's website, they list almost all the claims in the film, explain where they come from, and give links to the paper or article. In the case of methane it's from a NASA study on the upper atmosphere -- hardly some wild eyed fringe group.)
And some of the facts themselves are rather astounding. In a world short of clean water, do you really feel OK eating a burger that takes 660 gallons of clean water to produce?
Like all the best 'issue' documentaries, this will likely leave you examining your own lifestyle choices in a new light. What more can one ask from a 85 minute film?
Overrall, I can recommend this documentary to an environmental based audience. It is not safe to assume that every point made in the film is true, but the film exposes it's audience to the actual, real problems going on with the environment that are potentially kept a secret. Anyone who does not really interested in the environment, or more specifically, animal agriculture, will not have a lot to take away from Cowspiracy as they probably don't have an opinion on it in the first place.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCo-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.
- Quotes
Howard Lyman: Do what you can do as well as you can do it every day of your life and you will end up dying one of the happiest individuals that ever ever died.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Days of Revolt: The Assault of the Animal Agriculture Industry (2016)
- How long is Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 30 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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