Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret

Not like a normal review, read another to find out about the film! This time it's just praise!

Excellent documentary. This will quickly become a key issue if we all talk about it and share it with others. For every person that makes any change to their diet, the better off we all are. Imagine if right now all omnivores became overnight vegetarians? That's a huge step in the right direction, what if all the vegetarians became overnight vegans? Also the only 1 star review as of December 2nd 2014 was from a new account, every other review (6 others, mine makes it 8 total reviews) was 10 stars. I personally was told about this film and was encouraged to watch it, so glad I did.

Unlike the Earthlings that was just horrible to watch all the cruelty, this documentary still makes you angry, while only a few really hard scenes to stomach or look away from for a few seconds. *Warning ducks* Give it a watch, share it and let's make a difference, *psst our generation out numbers those old dying baby boomers, so the earth is literally in our hands, not the hands of old people who don't know about the amount of power the sharing internet has!

Wow. This unassuming, even occasionally goofy documentary packs one hell of a punch. It aims to be a sort of follow up to "An Inconvenient Truth". But in some ways this is arguably an even more powerful film.

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?

Kip's "life was simple, not a care in the world", until he saw a documentary on global warming and everything changed.

Not too happy about our planet's ghastly prognosis, he wanted to do his best to conserve our limited resources. He became an "O.C.E." - Obsessive Compulsive Environmentalist - and began recycling, composting, taking shorter showers, turning the faucet off while brushing his teeth, replacing inefficient light bulbs, turning lights off when leaving a room and riding his bike everywhere he went.

None of his efforts seemed to help much, instead, as years went by, things were getting worse. Kip then read an unprecedented United Nation's report and once again, everything changed... this time for good. The "sustainability secret" was unveiled and that's when this fun journey begins.

"Cowspiracy" is the longest overdue film; it is audacious, poignant and funny. Kip's interviews expose the selfish and shameless agenda behind some of the biggest "Environmental" Organizations in a way that both opens eyes and entertains.

Those who take pleasure in witnessing the unmasking of the powerful and negligent who only are moved by dollar signs will find "Cowspiracy" to be an aphrodisiac.

You already know the subject, animal husbandry. You all know the thesis - that animal husbandry is simply ecologically unsustainable with our current population numbers.

What Cowspiracy does is take one person through a very personal journey to show just how there is only one course of action that will allow this species to have a reasonable chance of surviving at the current population levels. We can change and adapt and go to a more healthy diet or we can wait for a massive ecological change and have our population levels and civilization crash like so many others have before.

Is it perfect? No, but it is still that good. I wish broadcast TV had the guts to run it. I wish it were played in schools. Unfortunately they never will.

This is a major movie event, a real eye opener, documenting why animal agriculture is the #1 contributor to greenhouse gases, the #1 environmental problem , the leading cause of rain forest destruction and habitat loss, creating massive amounts of untreated waste and using far more of our precious aquifers than if we all simply ate a plant-based diet.

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.