Cowspiracy. Several friends have asked what I think of it. So heres some impressions. It is contentious. It presents several facts, several distortions of truth, and interprets situations with particular bias and spin. Overall, great to see the controversy brought to the public. Having said that, I think everyone should view it with an open, or even skeptical, mind. What you are presented with may seem compellingly conclusive, but please, remember Gasland, where several facts were later revealed as false or staged. On the pro side, it is great to see presentation of farming, and its hastening of deforestation or ploughing up grassland wilderness, as the greater cause of human-produced Co2 than fossil fuel transport use. Media, politicians, and scientists concentrate too much on fossil fuel use than on change of land use - deforestation! Deforestation accounts for more than 17% of ACo2 emissions. And solving deforestation brings with it great benefits to bio-diversity, indigenous people, and the quality of the air we breathe. I applaud the film on that score. Lets all focus on protecting wilderness! On the down side, the film bases its premise on animal farming as the greater cause of global warming. This is sad. Now, all Vegans will blindly believe that eliminating animal farming will solve global warming. That is false. Global warming has many causes, and human-produced Co2 is a minor effect. Solar, according to many scientists, has a greater effect.( Lets leave that argument for later.) Many of the claims made by this film are listed in the link at the bottom here. Too many to list in this post. I want to say that something important is neglected from the great animal farming- emissions debate - The Substitution Effect. The North American cattle herd numbers around 120 million. Cattle are now farmed where, in pre-European times,Buffalo and pronghorn roamed. It is estimated Europeans slaughtered 50 million buffalo. And of the vast numbers of Pronghorn, some estimates suggest between 45 and 55 million, Europeans brought their numbers down to around 20,000 within the early 1900s. So, modern farming has replaced indigenous wildlife with relatively similar numbers of exotic animals. Somewhere in this comparison, also remember the decline in numbers of gophers, ground hogs, deer, elk, moose, coyote, wolves etc. So, the emissions from animals farmed today need to be compared to the emissions of the vast numbers of grazers that once roamed North America, and the difference is, arguably, negligible. However, the important point is shit. These millions of animals shat across the plains and mountains of North America, and that shit fertilized the wilderness. Todays intensive farming has a problem with concentrated shit. This shit is washing into waterways around the world where ever modern farming is. A major concern. On our recent travels in Northern Germany, home of the Frisian cow, the huge dairy farms there all have bio-digesters. Where ever you go in Germany, youll see these huge green plastic, inflatable tanks producing methane from shit, and that gas is used to power the farm. The solids are then suitably safe for applying as fertilizer. This system needs to be adopted everywhere, to protect our waterways, and, to get natural fertilizer back into the soil so we lessen our dependence on artificials. Coming home to New Zealand, I can say I have yet to see one. There are a few. But certainly not enough. As Alan Savory shows, in the video at the bottom of the Facts page I linked to, getting that manure back into the soil is important. cowspiracy/fact-check/
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:02:07 +0000
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