Hacker Cinema
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
2014 · Film · documentary · 90 min
Directed by Keegan Kuhn, Kip Andersen
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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46 comments on Hacker News
cowspiracy is a great documentary on this
Understand your points of view. I too ate meat for a long time. I too defended that position with same ferocity you do. But I was wrong to do it.
And you're wrong on too many points to discuss it at full - sorry, no space here, also have family to feed and work to do. My bookmarks folder about dangers of animal products/agriculture has hundreds of items. I'll cherrypick just few of them to get you started.
You'll find several of your viewpoints discussed here:
https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en
Want to learn more? (pun intended)
Movies:
- I'd recommend Dominion movie again, but you won't probably see it, and even if you do, i don't think the suffering of animals/horrors of the meat production will be enough to change your opinions, so I'll talk about it from different angle.
- Cowspiracy
- Seaspiracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw - This man makes you think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI - Dairy is scary
Health:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rNY7xKyGCQ - Dr. Michael Greger | How Not To Die
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnHYHjchn6w - Foods for Protecting the Body & Mind: Dr. Neal Barnard
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/whatthehealth - What the Health! (2017)
Impacts on biodiversity / climate change:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/30/us-food-production-climate-crisis-meat-monopoly-farming
https://www.salon.com/2022/11/11/the-meat-industry-is-borrowing-tactics-from-big-oil-to-obfuscate-the-truth-about-climate-change/
OK, I'll react to few of your points.
> "never personally eat meat strikes me as a bit of a neurotic, narcissistic response"
So avoiding killing is a neurotic, narcissistic response? Like, really?
> "to avoid ice cream to spare dairy cows who are clearly, if you meet them, quite happy with their jobs"
Are you sure? I've met a lot of them, when i was a child. You know that cows giving milk are mothers, forcefully impregnated/raped every year, with their calf taken from them on the day it's born? They loudly grieve for days/weeks, sometimes hiding the calf from the farmer only to be taken away from them days later? Do you know that producing milk on industrial scale shortens lifespan of cows to cca 1/3 (5-6 years instead of 20+), only to leave the cow exhausted/crippled and killed (changed into burgers) in the end?
Why we drink cow milk? Why not rat milk, giraffe milk, dog milk, human milk ... why it has to be cow milk? Why are cca 50-70% of people milk intolerant? Do you know about pus in the milk? About linked diseases like parkinsons and other autoimmune diseases linked to milk? That cow eating grass near industrial factory will eat more pollutants in a day than somebody living near breathing air for 14 years? About bioaccumulation of toxins in the milk/meat? About all proteins/b12 coming from plants/bacteria, not from the animals?
> And your next point - war.
You're clearly an american. Your country is the only country in the world being involved in wars constantly for 250+ years, achieving so little for so high a price. Your viewpoints mirror the indocrination you've received. It does not reflect reality either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_armed_conflicts_involving_the_United_States
I could go on and on, have to go, leaving you to it, sorry.
> what do you think of the documentary cowspiracy?
I haven't watched it but from what I've read about it, it seems like ideologically driven propaganda rather than a documentary.
> in any case if most of the grain production isnt going for feeding humans, it is quite ridiculous.
Why? The title of the article is misleading. If you look at the second graph, it's obvious that the amount of grain that is eaten directly by humans (1337 tonnes) is greater than the amount that goes to any another single use (the next highest is animal feed at 987).
In fact if you sum all the other uses up from that graph they come to 1570 tonnes, where 245 of that is "processing & losses", and another 73 is "seeds". Those are categories that overlap with grains used to feed humans directly (and other uses also) so it's not clear they should be counted separately . In short, only 1252 tonnes are definitely used to do other things than to directly feed us (namely, they become feed and fuel). So despite what the article says, most of the grain we produce seems to go to feed humans directly.
And as the article points out, it's not "grain" in general that's not fed to humans, but corn ("maize"). Most wheat and rice does go to feed humans directly and only a tiny amount of wheat or rice goes to other uses.
So, misleading title.
what do you think of the documentary cowspiracy?
in any case if most of the grain production isnt going for feeding humans, it is quite ridiculous.
What a terrible article.
It feels like a desperate attempt of the meat industry to delay the inevitable, not too different from cigarette and oil industry tactics we've all seen in the past. They also had a plethora of experts to convince the public it's a good thing to smokwe. Food industry is powerful and it will go down kicking, that's for sure.
> When the documentary Cowspiracy came out and said 51 per cent of emissions are from livestock, I knew that was not true. I knew that the official global number was 14.5 per cent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. And even that is an exaggerated number.
If you want to learn more, and why the contribution of meat production may be even higher than 51%, see the following paper: https://climatehealers.org/the-science/animal-agriculture-position-paper/
One thing from the article I can agree with. Don't eat highly processed food. Not all vegan diets are healthy diets.
If you want to stay healthy, eat whole plant-based foods, minimum fat. Whenever someone has health problem, doctors will recommend plant based diet - like with cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses, gallblader & pancreas, kidney, endometriosis ... it's easily verifiable.
In fact, 15 top killer diseases are preventable with plant-based diets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXXygDRyBU
If I had more time, I would have written a better comment. Sorry.
Discussion about the documentary film, Cowspiracy.
>> "oversimplifies a complex issue", so why don't try to explain it to us?
Note that this is the BBC's turn of phrase, not a quote from one of the interviewed experts.
As to the studies mentioned in the BBC article, most of those are the ones cited in Seaspiracy itself. The BBC seems to have asked the authors of the studies to comment on how their findings were represented by Seaspiracy.
In the case of Cowspiracy (the prequel, so to speak) there have been careful analyses of the claims in that documentary. From wikipedia:
>> Doug Boucher, reviewing the film for the Union of Concerned Scientists, disputed the film's assertion that 51% of global greenhouse gases are caused by animal agriculture. Boucher describes the 51% figure as being sourced from a 2009 Worldwatch Institute report by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang,[18] not from a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Boucher asserted methodological flaws in Goodland and Anhang's logic, and said that the scientific community formed a consensus that global warming is primarily caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels.[1] Boucher stated that the scientific consensus is that livestock contribute 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions - far lower than the 51% stated by the film.[1] Boucher's review concludes: "Movies like Cowspiracy aren’t believable, not only because of how they twist the science, but also because of what they ask us to believe: that the fossil fuel industry—the ExxonMobils of the world—aren’t the main cause of global warming... and that thousands of scientists have covered up the truth about the most important environmental issue of our time."[1]
>> (...)
>> A 2018 peer-reviewed meta-analysis estimates that the food supply chain is responsible for 26% of annual anthropogenic GHG emissions. Within the food supply chain, animal products (including fish farms) account for 56-58% of GHGs,[3] implying that animal products account for roughly 15% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions.[23][24] In a 2019 erratum to the meta-analysis, the avoided annual greenhouse gas emissions arising from a "no animal products" scenario are estimated at 28% of the total, which includes 8.1 Gt CO2 of removal by trees regrowing on land no longer required for livestock.[25]
>> A 2019 Forbes article quotes Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize winner and former U.S. Secretary of Energy, stating: “Let me say it again: agriculture and land-use generates more greenhouse gas emissions than power generation." The article references the 2009 Worldwatch Institute article that estimates livestock are responsible for at least 51% of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.[26]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowspiracy
No doubt, a similar careful analysis of Seaspiracy will follow at some point. The BBC is probably not that interested in a careful analysis anyway.
- Watched "cowspiracy" ~2 yrs ago and other documentaries (like "seaspiracy" ~ 1 week ago) to question my food consumption. 4h invest
- basically turned vegetarian (like 99,99%) in 2014
- joined avaaz.org to sign petitions. 30 mins per month invest
- I'm a minimalist and avoid buying new stuff, avoid buying furniture altogether
- Use the bike to get to work
- did a sticker campaign in 2014 to raise awareness about our lives and the planet (I firmly believe that awareness is a key factor to sustainability)
Both cowspiracy and seaspiracy, received a lot of critics and fact check by prominence professors.
"oversimplifies a complex issue", so why don't try to explain it to us? Instead of criticizing and discrediting real issues that we're going to face in a few years.
Ah, they're quoting multiple times professor X and study Y without links or reference...
I'm not a Netflix fan/users, but I saw those documentaries and I really appreciate the effort they're doing to open the eyes of a lot of people.
I watched Cowspiracy. It was not convincing. It used numbers that seemed wildly exaggerated on their face, even before doing follow-on research. It also seemed designed to be emotionally manipulative more than informative. Maybe I don't watch enough documentaries, but it had a youtube conspiracy theorist vibe to it, rather than a measured, investigative approach.
Unfortunately the documentary Cowspiracy is operating with massively exaggerated numbers (it claims meat is responsible for more than 50% of ghg emissions, it's explained on the wikipedia article of the film).
Real numbers from credible sources are that greenhouse gas emissions from the meat and dairy industry are around 15%. Which is large enough to take this problem seriously, but it's still far away from those claims.
I think this is harming the case. The problem is big enough to be passionate about fake meat. No need for exaggeration.
Cowspiracy is a great documentary
> A few of the brighter bulbs in sustainable agriculture treat their animals more like you might an intern.
> Except for the whole bad day at the end.
It's about animal exploitation as a whole. Any commoditization of sentient beings is a bad thing. We don't need to, when it comes to a choice (especially in this forum), we can choose to not be a part of that system.
> Most of these fad diet folks have this stuff all wrong. We didn't eat all fruits and nuts. We didn't eat all meat. We ate a steady diet of opportunistic foods, and meat was a supplement to our nutrition.
Stopping exploitation isn't a diet fad. Some people might confuse it though. We don't need to be opportunistic now.
> To be a vegan requires you to use a global supply system for your food, which has its own carbon footprint problems.
Sure, and we can do better on many fronts. But animal exploitation is one of the main contributors to climate change. We're already using a global supply chain for animals, which includes all the growth of food in other countries to ship to them.
> It has been asserted, sometimes as a throwaway line, in a number of historical documentaries I've seen, that part of structural classism in the middle ages was denying meat to the working class, leading to developmental delays. Malnutrition made them dumber. Easier to control. 'Course, they gave themselves gout in the process...
Historically what we have done should not impact our current ability of choices. We can live on a healthy vegan diet. Structural classism also includes the current worker in the meat industry. https://www.livekindly.co/slaughterhouse-workers-victims-meat-industry/
In terms of malnutrition people can live on a healthy diet while vegan.
https://www.bda.uk.com/resource/british-dietetic-association-confirms-well-planned-vegan-diets-can-support-healthy-living-in-people-of-all-ages.html
There's a lot of information here https://www.cowspiracy.com/facts
There are plenty of videos explaining stuff about exploitation. Dominion is free on youtube. In terms of youtubers Earthling Ed is a good watch.
Most importantly, it's easy and one of the single most impactful decisions we can individually make on a daily basis
Cowspiracy's numbers on global warming are bull shit. That infographic attributes 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions to animal agriculture.
The US EPA says that 24% of global emissions are attributable to all agriculture and land use changes as of 2010:
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
The IPCC's more recent accounting says 23% of global emissions are attributable to all agriculture and land use changes:
https://www.ipcc.ch/2019/08/08/land-is-a-critical-resource_srccl/
Here's a detailed critical review of Cowspiracy from the Union of Concerned Scientists:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/doug-boucher/cowspiracy-movie-review
According to Cowspiracy, the major source of global warming pollution isn’t fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, as the world’s scientists are telling us. No, it’s animal agriculture—not just eating cows, but all other kinds of meat, and eggs and milk and fish too. So the principal solution to global warming isn’t renewable energy. It’s for everyone to become a vegan.
Central to Cowspiracy’s conspiracy theory is the supposed “fact” that a 2009 study found that 51% of all greenhouse gases are produced by animal agriculture.
A good deal of the movie is taken up with interviews with people from environmental organizations, such as the Rainforest Action Network, Oceana, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, who don’t seem to accept this “fact,” and therefore must be part of the conspiracy to cover it up. Greenpeace politely declined, twice, to be interviewed, proving that they’re part of the cowspiracy too. ...
Here's a full infographic with sources [0].
I did watch this documentary, and while I don't agree with some of the conclusions or outlook, it does serve up some facts I wouldn't have looked into had I not seen it.
[0] https://www.cowspiracy.com/infographic
Thanks for this comment! It resonated with me.
I had somewhat of existential crisis after watching "Cowspiracy" and immediately gave up all meat for a few years for what I anxiously decided was for ethical and environmental reasons.
I did it because I felt guilty, then I watched more documentaries like it and made myself feel more responsible and guilty for everything.
One day I just "woke up" and started eating some fish and chicken. It felt good, not at all because I ate animals (I don't love the ethics of this), but because I no longer felt guilty for eating food.
There are some behaviors and activities I think as individuals we should maybe feel guilty for being involved in, but I don't like the way people are made to feel guilty for just doing the basics.
Has it been debunked? As far as my reading has shown me in the past and now, it seems to be fairly accurate, with some criticisms levelled at its conclusion that veganism is the right solution.
https://www.quora.com/How-accurate-is-the-movie-Cowspiracy/answer/James-Ballantyne-3
I recommend watching What The Health (https://www.whatthehealthfilm.com/) - a great doc by the same guys who did Cowspiracy, this time focusing on the health and lobyy aspects of the meat and diary industry.
Negative lobbying is something that fills me with anger unlike any other and not eating meat and diary JUST to stop giving those fuckers my money is reason enough. Of course, there are many other great reasons to do so (animal welfare, environment, health) - and no objectively good reason to eat meat and diary.
And no, reasons such as:
- "We need meat to be healthy"
- "Humans meant to be eat meat historically"
- "I love the taste and this is a free country"
Are either scientifically wrong or not objectively good reasons.
1) Go watch the movie cowspiracy on netflix. Go vegan.
2) Get an energy audit and see if your home needs more insulation. If a solar panel installation will pay for itself in a reasonable time where you live (rebates - SRECs - etc) consider getting one.
3) If you live in a warmer climate with safe biking paths - get an electric bike to go to work.
4) The next car you get should be electric or plugin hybrid. Even if it's a used car.
We cannot mess around anymore. Governments always lag society - they never lead. So we need to push to make these changes more common.
Here's my list of 10/10 documentaries:
Biopics and Portraits:
- Kung Fu Elliot (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3228302/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Listen to Me Marlon (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4145178/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Man on Wire (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155592/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- My Winnipeg (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1093842/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- A Gray State (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6794380/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1683876/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Valley Uprising (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3784160/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- You've Been Trumped (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1943873/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
Environmental:
- Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- The Cove (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313104/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Chasing Coral (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6333054/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Virunga (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3455224/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
Crime:
- Cartel Land (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4126304/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- The Act of Killing (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375605/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- The Culture High (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1778338/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4299972/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- West of Memphis (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2130321/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- How to Make Money Selling Drugs (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276962/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- The Fear of 13 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5083702/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Brother's Keeper (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103888/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446610/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
Reflecting on Life and Death:
- Given (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4890452/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Extremis (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5538078/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Touching the Void (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379557/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Attention: A Life in Extremes (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2846628/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
Society:
- Israel vs Israel (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1753960/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- Inside Job (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
- The Overnighters (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3263996/?ref_=rt_li_tt)
Your figure is from cowspiracy - it's worth looking up the film to discover its many other inaccuracies.
https://newint.org/blog/2016/02/10/cowspiracy-stampeding-in-the-wrong-direction
> I wasn't looking to get into a debate regarding the ethics of eating animals vs not eating them. I'm very clear in my ethics regarding that. I, personally, find myself much more concerned with the living system as a whole, rather than individuals.
So go vegan. Have a look at Cowspiracy for example. Our meat consumption is killing our habitat on this planet.
> > About half of US soy is produced for animal feed[1]. I think worldwide this number is much higher (US imports feed). Also land use for animal farming (including what they need for growing feed) is HUMONGOUS compared to the land needed to feed a human on a plant-based diet.
> This is a really good point, though I really wished I used a different example because my main point was that many veggies and vegans don't really care about the big picture so long as they can convince themselves their conscious is clean.
How do you know? I say it's BS as the vegans I know are making a daily effort to improve the shituation, while omnis keep coming with lame excuses.
> They're the people in the Trolley Car Problem who would never push a large person onto the tracks to save five other people, but if you gave them a button that served the same function then they would go ahead and push that.
laughs Sorry man, not even replying to this. Any research to back this statement up? I guess nah.
> It is, of course, the same cognitive dissonance that allows factory farming to continue since plenty of people admit they could never kill a cow while munching on a burger. Just a few layers of abstraction give people peace of mind and technology enables people to hide behind more layers every day.
Yes. And it is the vegans that are the exception here. I picked fruit! I pulled a cabbage from soil. I would never like to kill an animal, not even when it give me taste pleasure.
> > Lab grown meat is going to make the discussion very pure. > > If we can provide the same experience/conveinience without the animals suffering, then what sick fuck would still pay for animal-based product?
> Probably any "sick fuck" who doesn't have the means to spend half their paycheck on lab-grown protein sources
I forgot to say that the price-at-shop is same of cheaper for the faux meat. So that what I mean by a pure discussion: we have the same-price-same-experience right here, why buy cruelty?
> > Going non-factory-farmed hugely increases the resource consumption for a pieces of meat. I thought you were concerned with resource consumption?
> One assumption [...] it's a race.
Are you concerned with resource consumption or not? If yes: do your research and go (mostly) vegan. Why wait for it to be to expensive for you to pay for?
> My main point in all this was to try to get people to think twice about just lauding lab meat without considering the potential issues. I'm not going to continue here because I try to maintain a policy of not h
Without substantial foundation that's called F.U.D.
> Having emotional conversations with people I can't look in the eye and you are obviously quite passionate about this.
So what. Yes I try to make a difference. My passion is not the point here.
> Again, I appreciate the thoughtful and well-researched response
Thanks for noticing. :)
> though I find it noteworthy that neither you, nor anyone else that responded, seemed to address the actual comparison of resources for lab grown meat vs nature grown meat.
Because it is still a question mark. It has all the potential to be much more sustainable. That's why Gates/Branson/etc are investing in this: they know we need to live more sustainable or die as a species. It is not a choice at this point.
> We're not using technology to become more moral or ethical, we're using it to become lazier and more complacent.
The ethical impact of this tech is a side-effect. The ones investing are simply looking to make money. That we cannot grow further with our livestock numbers is primarily an economic factor for the investors. It just happens to line up at this point.
> The same attitude that allows people to eat meat without caring about the conditions under which it was made isn't going to change when lab meat becomes available...
Says who? At the same price/experience it has the potential to make a huge difference! I know loads of peeps who'd switch (or pretty much have switch since the alternative are good enough for them). They do not need to re-learn cooking, just pick the other "meat" and do as you always do.
> which means that if companies that make lab meat DO end up having to cut costs by killing some other ecosystem, they probably won't care about that either.
Srsly. Where do you get this from? What ecosystem are you talking about?
Not the ecosystems in the forests that where cut for animal agriculture of the GMO soy/corn field to feed them...
Get a grip man. You're chasing ghosts.
> For me, whether you eat meat or veggies doesn't determine how ethical you are as a person
For me it does because, in your own words:
> it's how much energy you're actually willing to spend on giving a shit about how your actions affect others.
And going vegan is an effort, try it, and you save many animals by doing so. That industry is so ugly you would not be able to swallow that piece of corpse when you had to look at movies showing its practices.
I really wish for you to try to consume cruelty free, you seem to have the capacity to understand it will help (though still trying to deny it with --in my opinion-- highly convoluted reasoning).
Your comment is filled with hyperbole, ad hominems and misinformation, making it seem like you’re angry with vegans for some reason. That has resulted in putting forth claims and beliefs without good enough backing - statements like “vegans can’t be healthy” and like vegan researchers will use meat eating to explain some other totally unrelated phenomena. It would help look at better sources of information. On that front, though not the best, I’d recommend watching this documentary called “Cowspiracy”.
In this context, dairy consumption is also linked to climate change (just like meat is), because it’s the same animals (cattle) who are bred and raised to produce dairy (excreting methane and CO2) and then slaughtered in a fraction of their lifespan when their milk production drops.
If you want to lower your carbon footprint below that of a vegetarian, going vegan is one way to do it.
P.S.: Watch the documentary “Cowspiracy”.
I am slowly getting there. After watching the film cowspiracy my wife and I decided to slowly transition, mainly environmental reasons but also because of the way animals are treated. We eat meat maybe once/twice a week coming down from twice daily, and when we do eat meat we try and source the best from small farmers. Transitioning away from meat has been relatively easy, where I personally fall short is dairy. There just isn't a good substitute for cheese and I find the smell and taste of soya milk awful. Hopefully new products will come along...
I'm the author. Ho boy. Just a few clarifications based on things I'm seeing here:
"a vegetarian diet, and specially a vegan diet, is A LOT less awful then an omni diet both environmentally, ethically and considering health impact."
I agree. Nowhere did I contradict this.
"He argues vegetarians eat more staples."
No, I argue that the most vegetarian diets are composed primarily of staples. Subtle but extremely important distinction.
"Showing pictures of hippies to re-enforce the idea that vegetarians/vegans are some treehugging margin group."
I dug my own grave here. Had no idea this article would go viral. Oops.
"meat eating is simply not sustainable"
Correct; CAFO industrial meat that's eaten without an ear toward seasonality or ecological propriety is pure hell. However, sustainable food production systems will rely on modeling natural patterns (which is the opposite of what nearly all farms today do), and that will rely heavily on animals - though far, far, FAR fewer of them - for mineral cycling and fertility, as do nearly all native ecosystems. I don't have the space here to talk about fertility via animals vs nitrogenous covers; may address that in a later article.
"Cowspiracy"
This movie is directed at the industrial meat supply chain: the land-expansive background farms that feed CAFOs and the CAFOs themselves. I advocate for neither.
"The author is also playing the false dichotomy vegetarian <-> omnivorous"
There is an entire paragraph in my article where I explain that not all vegetarian diets, and not all omnivorous diets, are created equal.
"Had the author consulted the literature, he'd know that the environmental credentials of grass-fed beef are extremely suspect; some studies suggest that the carbon footprint is actually greater than intensive feedlot beef and the land use is absolutely vast. He'd know that only a handful of animal sources of protein have equivalent CO2 emissions to plant sources - intensively reared poultry, eggs and some inshore seafoods."
The increased carbon footprint of grass-finished beef is based on grass finished beef living longer than grain finished beef because they take longer to finish. The studies I've seen regarding grass/grain cattle emissions are limited to examination of lifetime carbon output directly from the cow through expiration. They do not examine 1.) the sequestration of carbon into soil built by ecologically managed, rotationally-grazed herds, 2.) the carbon output of CAFO manure lagoons, 3.) the carbon footprint of the grains fed to CAFO animals. In short, the studies do not address the net carbon effect of the entire system, and they only address the two "traditional" methods of raising cattle, neither of which I endorse.
"He's very clear that eating a fully vegetarian diet now is worse, footprint-wise, that eating a mildly omnivorous one."
Not quite. I said it's POSSIBLE for a fully vegetarian diet to be worse, footprint wise, than a plant-centric omnivorous one. I.e. there is no deterministic link between vegetarian diets and sustainability.
"Besides some flimsy claims about who consumes the most staples"
Again, I make no claims about who eats the most staples. I make a claim that the most vegetarian diets are principally composed of staples.
"It's not much about vegetarianism, except to attack it for clickbait reasons."
Absolutely correct. I had to choose between an accurate title that almost no one would read, or a caustic one that would stimulate debate and get me yelled at. And so here we are :-)
"The author should cite the article(s) that claim vegetarian diets alone will save the planet"
As stated in the first sentence, this article was prompted by a slew of responses from vegetarians to my previous article about organic agriculture, nearly all of whom argued that the "simple" solution to food sustainability was to switch to a vegetarian diet.
"Question: aren't 'local', small-scale farms more resource-intensive per unit of food grown than factory farms, not less?"
Yes. However, I'm advocating a form of agriculture that doesn't exist yet.
> According to many sources, that are well presented in the Cowspiracy documentary (among others) it is shown that a vegetarian diet, and specially a vegan diet, is A LOT less awful then an omni diet both environmentally, ethically and considering health impact.
Just a quick note: The "Cowspiracy" movie unfortunately presents its case by cherry picking scientific evidence and presenting much higher numbers than what is reasonable. Wikipedia has something about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowspiracy#Criticism
I recently saw that movie. Basically what the movie maker did was taking the highest number he could find and repeating it over and over again.
This is unfortunate, because the overall message is still very much true: Meat production causes a lot of greenhouse gas emissions and cutting them is a great opportunity. And NGOs are very reluctant to talk about it.
TL;DR: Terrible article, I suggest not waste your time on it.
Why?
* Author writes """it’s more accurate to say that vegetarian diets are “less awful,” not “better,” than omnivorous diets""". He gives no hard numbers to back it up. Less awful IS OBVIOUSLY the same as better. According to many sources, that are well presented in the Cowspiracy documentary (among others) it is shown that a vegetarian diet, and specially a vegan diet, is A LOT less awful then an omni diet both environmentally, ethically and considering health impact.
* He argues vegetarians eat more staples. And that they are usually grown as mono crops, thus bad for the environment. He forgets that animals slaughtered for meat have been eating staples all their lives. A large part of the staples are grown for life stock; this makes meat so inefficient in the first place. The author is seems to know that it is also grown for life stock, but then continues that vegetarians are responsible for the monocrop disaster. Clearly misguided he is.
* Showing pictures of hippies to re-enforce the idea that vegetarians/vegans are some treehugging margin group. Whoever lives in a cosmopolitan city knows this is not true, or not anymore.
What I do agree on: eat with the seasons. But simple economics of "eat what is cheap" should help with that. It is that supermarkets choose to put the "high price" on produce all year long, except for a discount crop maybe. This is because produce does not pull customers.
What pulls customers? Cheap meat, and cheap beer. That's why there's always some meat on offer that costs less per kilo then bell peppers in the supermarkets near where I live.
If we want to save the planet from the rather imminent "mass extinction" (lets not call it "global warming" that sound waaay to nice), we should not optimize for consumerism but for sustainability. And meat eating is simply not sustainable.
My three favorite documentaries are:
- Earthlings - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358456/
- Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117293/
- Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/ (some have questioned some specifics presented in the documentary, it is on my list of favorites for the overall point it makes about sustainability as it relates to animal agriculture)
I agree that this would be a better situation. Does it explore if that symbiotic relationship would change the impact on the environment animal farming has? I have in mind the movie cowspiracy, which explained that cow farming causes a big greenhouse effect.
This is ignoring the real issue which is animal agriculture. If we ate the corn ourselves instead of feeding it to cows, we'd be using much less land, be healthier and of course, end the worst crime in history.
I highly recommend watching the documentary 'Cowspiracy'.
Because feeding meat to 9 billion is unsustainable and the only reason we are able to do it now is because of the huge subsidies. It has terrible environmental effects and it's morally wrong since the only reason people still eat meat is the taste and tradition. I expect a huge paradigm shift here. For more information you could watch documentaries like Cowspiracy and Earthlings.
Edit - Obligatory VSK: http://vegansidekick.tumblr.com/image/151486277095
> As a global apex superpredator, wouldn't you rather reap the rewards of the rest of the ecosystem doing that work for you than doing it yourself? Or do you think there's a way we can produce those 5x plants efficiently enough to feed you without going 2nd hand? Or is the argument that with modern farming we're already producing those pkants anyway, and the meat step is unnecessary?
Most animals consumed or used by humans in today's world are bred into existence by humans (through artificial insemination, forced and frequent pregnancies, etc.) and are fed 'well designed' feed (to maximize growth), which in turn uses vast resources like land and fresh water to grow plant food to feed the animals (essentially, this plant food is grown in one place and transported to another place to feed animals). Most (or all, depending on the location) of this feed is composed of plants that humans can consume (or the land can be used to grow plants that humans can consume).
> Is it more economical to deal with logistics of 5 units of plants or 1 unit of meat?
As mentioned above, the logistics to deal with five units of plants and processing them so animals can be fed these plants is already in use to produce animal based food and other items. So we don't really need to create new logistics to transport plant food in higher volume to humans. We just have to use what we have differently. I don't have a source or citation for this, but I've read somewhere that if humans use the arable land (currently in use to grow plants for humans and for the animals whom humans consume) for growing plant food to feed humans, we could potentially feed 11 billion people.
Considering the significant negative environmental impact of animal agriculture, humans and other animals on this planet can last longer and benefit a lot by more people consuming more plants instead of consuming animals.
To get an idea of the order of magnitude difference in fresh water used ('water foot print') for growing plants compared to growing animals for meat (including per calorie comparisons), look at this brief comparison on Waterfootprint.org. [1] (Not all plant foods are the same - so you may see some plants consuming more water than animal based foods)
You could also skim through this study (linked on the previous page) and check the tables that have more information. [2] The interactive tools on that website are also interesting to learn from. [3]
You could watch the documentary "Cowspiracy" [4] to get an idea about the overall impact of animal agriculture on the environment and how it's not sustainable or even possible to feed all humans on the planet with dairy and meat that does not come from factory farming operations. Intensive factory farming is a prerequisite if this is a goal. (As with all documentaries, it is a bit biased, but most figures and stats quoted in it are true or close to the truth).
This is tangential, but humans are not 'apex super predators' and are not at the top of the food chain ('trophic level'). On average, globally, and on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being plants and 5 being an apex super predator), humans come at 2.21 (less than half way). [5]
[1]: http://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/
[2]: http://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Mekonnen-Hoekstra-2012-WaterFootprintFarmAnimalProducts.pdf
[3]: http://waterfootprint.org/en/resources/interactive-tools/
[4]: http://cowspiracy.com/
[5]: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/where-do-humans-really-rank-on-the-food-chain-180948053/?no-ist
Too long of a read for me. Yet I do have an opinion :)
In capitalism a business is allowed to throw out what it wants; we have seen many products simply destroy in order not "destroy the market".
But capitalism is wrong --IMHO-- and wasting resources I deem sinful. We should try to avoid wasting resources, and we can. Simply put some laws in place that "tax" wasting resources to the extend that businesses become waste-averse.
As for individuals, this is harder, I'd say that a mentality shift is needed. Probably the same mentality shift needed for the afore mentioned laws to be passed. But believe that we can inspire each other to live in a less wasteful way, I believe we have been doing this already for 100s of years.
p.s.: Do you want to know what is probably the most wasteful behavior of mankind? Watch the Cowspiracy documentary.
The Cowspiracy documentary linked to is also quite good. It's very slanted, but it does a good job of presenting questions while being light hearted and not trying to make you feel massively guilty.
Cows and other animal agriculture contributes as much or more [1], to climate change than all cars and trucks. So eating less meat is one good way.
> Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and which stays in the atmosphere for 150 years. -“Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2006
[1] From this excellent documentary: http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
I recommend everybody to watch the documentary COWSPIRACY.
If I just tell you the bottom line of the documentary I get downvoted too much because of unbelief, so watch it first.
Methane == climate change.
> Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 on climate change is more than 25 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.
https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html
This is heavily discussed in a documentary I watched recently, "Cowspiracy."
This might come as a big shock, but grass-fed farming operations are in fact less sustainable and worse for the environment than even factory farming. I really recommend you check out the documentary Cowspiracy (it's available on NetFlix), or just look at the fact sheet on their web site - http://cowspiracy.com/facts
Your claim that vegans have worse health is entirely unsubstantiated. Do you have any evidence for this?
MEAT CONSUMPTION is the main reason and where everyone should be focusing on first for reducing the negative impact we have on nature.
Meat consumption and livestock in general creates more pollution than ALL transportation means in the world all together.
http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
I suggest everyone watch this documentary. It changed the way I eat.
Lets define and understand the problem before we try to find a solution. The problem is that the climate is changing. The "why" is the big question. Gregg Braden has showed that our planet has a varying temperature for millions of years and we should try to understand what is behind this. One thing is clear and that it is not a higher level of CO2 or less Ozon. It is a smart thing to ask ourselves also the question "Which factors contribute to climate change?". The documentary COWSPIRACY shows that 54% of the CO2 production comes from the meat industry. So the biggest gains are not with "clean" energy but with "clean" meat. CO2 production increases significantly when the population and meat consumption increases so figure out what the priorities for "clean" meat and "clean" energy should be.
There's a great documentary on Netflix called Cowspiracy. It's very well sourced[1] and quite entertaining too.
1: http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
I watched Cowspiracy a while ago. While many of its points are valid (as far as I can tell), I was personally distracted by the pseudo-conspiratorial subnarrative regarding the NGOs' focus on easier goals.
I felt the same about the storytelling in Cowspiracy as I did about many of Michael Moore's films: the "personal struggle"-style and an indignant narrator detracts from the main points, which could instead be more fleshed out in detail.
BUT: People don't ignore the points these two documentaries bring up because they haven't heard them; they do it because they are able to (and it's very easy and convenient to do so at present).
PS. Diet is one of several subjects here on HN (and elsewhere) that tend to be fraught with anecdotes and fads.
Cowspiracy and Earthlings are documentaries that most people prefer to ignore. Hopefully, now that DiCaprio is behind Cowspiracy, and got it into Netflix, it will be noticed by a wider audience.
I doubt it will be very popular here though, given the strong cognitive bias I noticed in HN when the subject is diet.
a member of the Meat Advisory Panel... said "“The top priorities for cancer prevention remain smoking cessation, maintenance of normal body weight and avoidance of high alcohol intakes.”"
emeritus fellow at the Institute of Food Research, also said the effect was small.
The North American Meat Institute said defining red meat as a cancer hazard defied common sense.
Due to economies of McDonald's, Burger King et al, there appears to be an intense lobbying group
which would go against any attempt to bring forth discussion on this topic.
I won't be surprised if a decade or two from now we see the issue in the same light as Lead
poisoning primarily due to someone's[1] fight against the status quo.
On a related topic, there is an interesting documentary Cowspiracy [0] (available on Netflix)
which talks about the carbon footprint caused by the animal husbandry. Although it's feature
length, I think the first two acts are compelling.
[0] http://www.cowspiracy.com/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson
Edit: Flow.
the overfishing problem you mention is also addressed in "Cowspiracy" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/) which I highly recommend. Since few days available on Netflix Germany.