By now you have heard that on Monday of this week, the cancer agency of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), released a report that definitively stated that processed meat causes cancer, and that red meat, including beef, pork and lamb, probably causes cancer, too.
Climate change stands to affect all life on this planet. Monster storms, raging wildfires, record droughts, melting ice caps, acidification of the oceans, even entire countries going underwater – that could all be caused by the burden of human beings on the Earth. Scientists are warning that unless we take drastic measures to correct our environmental footprint, our time on this planet may be limited to fifty more years.
After Cowspiracy co-director, Kip Andersen watched the documentary An Inconvenient Truth about the catastrophic impacts of global warming, he started following the advice of all of the major environmental organizations – composting, recycling, switching lightbulbs, shorter showers, bicycling over driving, you know the drill. But when he discovered that animal agriculture plays a larger role in environmental destruction than even the fossil fuel industry, he was shocked that the organizations that he had been supporting had not even mentioned it.
Something we are frequently asked after people have seen our film (or, in many cases have not seen our film) is, “Oh, yeah? What about Allan Savory?”
For those of you who don’t exactly know who we are talking about, Allan Savory is a biologist and former member of the Rhodesian Parliament. In 2013, he gave a TED Talk which blew some people’s minds and on the flip-side, caused many a red forehead from repeated face-palming.
His theory is this: Though it is well documented that livestock overgrazing causes desertification and worsens climate change, Savory believes the cure to our changing climate, is to add even more cattle to the deserts, obsessively manage, and eat more of them.
For a more in-depth look into why this is just oh-so-wrong, we are turning to journalist and author, George Monbiot, with The Guardian...
