“Cowspiracy” and this Vegan’s Review

Just home from seeing this movie in Montreal. You will be blown away by the truth behind the curtain and by the authenticity, bravery and passion of these two filmmakers.

 

I posted the above comment on Facebook the other nite after watching, spellbound, the movie everyone is talking about. Yes, you got it right, COWSPIRACY:THE SUSTAINABILITY SECRET.  If you have not yet heard of it, believe me, you will. This is the story of a guy, an all American guy, who, some years ago, took to heart the teachings of Al Gore and his environmental doc entitled, An Inconvenient Truth. This all American guy, Kip Anderson, started conserving and recycling in his own personal life in order to save a rapidly deteriorating earth. He diligently took shorter showers, recycled everything and rode his bike instead driving a car. 

But then, he began researching, in depth, the subject of pollution and the degradation of the  earth. He discovered that the number one cause of greenhouse gas emissions is nonhuman animal agriculture, including and not limited to factory farming, grass grazed cows, and backyard ducks. According to World Watch.org:

Livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32,000 million tons of CO2 per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

The film is filled with many such facts that should blow the top off the ongoing sustainability conspiracy which has been designed  to protect the bottom line of nonhuman animal agri-business. Our planet is dying because of this closely guarded secret. The rivers and oceans are filled with dead zones and the rainforests are being destroyed at the rate of one to two acres per second. There is continued mass extinction of species. According to enivronmental experts, Dr Oppenlander and Will Anderson, we are next in line. And it is not all  that far away. Maybe not in our lifetime, but very certainly in that of our children and grandchildren, if nothing changes.

Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution , and habitat destruction.

And just who is keeping this destructive secret? -Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Oceana and other environmental and preservation  groups, who will not admit that nonhuman animal agriculture is destroying life on this planet. Presumably they have reason to fear being honest and reason to want to retain financial contributors who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

The further Kip and his partner, Keegan dug, the murkier the waters became, the more opposition they encountered, ultimately ending with their funding being pulled. They carried on, in spite of some initial fear for their own personal safety and made the movie doing the majority of the work on their own.

Along the way, Kip questioned his own life as an omnivore and became vegan overnite when he realized he could no longer continue to exploit nonhumans as food, for their own sake, for free living nonhumans, for our own species and for the planet.

There is just way too much  information to list here, but I urge you to go to their website and get the facts. Find a screening, tell your friends and please go and see it.

Kip was available for a Q & A following the screening in Montreal.  I struck by  his passion, humility, dedication and courage in seeing this through to the end. He was asked what was the hardest part of getting this movie made. He replied that the visit to the organic dairy farm was by far the most difficult, emotionally. He explained it this way. I am paraphrasing.

You know how you can feel the emotion and heart of a cat or dog when they lose a best friend. The sadness is palpable. At the organic dairy farm, I felt the same thing. The mother cows are heavy with sadness. Their babies, who have been taken from them shortly  after birth, are up on a hill living in little huts, being fattened for veal or growing to become dairy cows like their mothers. The babies cannot see the mothers, but the mothers can see them. They are just so sad.