Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret Page #3

...besides live your life

the way you've been living it...

...but change a light bulb

from time to time...

...drive less, use less plastic,

recycle more.

It's better for their fundraising

and better for their profile...

...to create a victim-and-perpetrator

sort of plotline.

It's like when we talk about the fact that

we have a dysfunctional family...

...and the father's an alcoholic,

that's the one thing no one talks about.

Everybody goes around that,

and yet it's the one thing...

...that's causing the devastation

in the relationships in the family...

...because no one wants to talk about it.

How could these organizations

not know?

The issue is right in front of them.

It's unmistakable at this point.

And just like these organizations,

they're falling over themselves...

...to show the general public

that climate change is human-caused.

And in doing so, they completely fail

to see what's right in front of them...

...that animal agriculture,

raising and killing animals for food...

...is really what's killing the planet.

That was it. No more e-mails,

no more phone calls. I had enough.

I realized if I wanted answers,

I'd have to go...

...to these organizations'

headquarters in person.

- Hi, how's it going?

- Good.

We're doing a full-length

feature documentary...

...and it's on sustainability

and how animal agriculture plays a role.

And we're seeing if we could

talk to David Barre.

- Barre? Okay.

- Yeah.

- Do you have an appointment with him?

- We've been trying for almost two months.

We haven't even had

one receptive e-mail or anything.

- Seeing if we could just set something up.

- Sure, let me... So let me just...

They sent out their PR person instead.

She refused to be filmed and told us

to turn off the camera...

...but promised someone

from their Rainforest, Ocean...

...and Climate Change Departments

would all speak with us, finally.

Next stop was to give

Sierra Club a visit.

They were a bit more receptive

to me showing up at their doorstep.

Hey, how's it going?

With the climate change,

what's the leading cause of that?

Well, it's basically burning

too many fossil fuels.

You know, so coal, natural gas, oil.

Tarsands, oil shale.

All these new exotic fuels

that are kind of hybrids between them.

But that's basically what

is loading up the atmosphere...

...so we have this greenhouse effect

where the heat is getting trapped...

...and the temperatures are soaring...

...at a rate that has never existed

in the history of the Earth.

And what about...?

What about livestock

and animal agriculture?

Well, what about it? I mean...

...but I'm afraid we're not going

to be able to help this time.

Thanks again,

and we wish you the best of luck."

Greenpeace's response reminded me

of the statistic...

Greenpeace's response reminded me

of the statistic...

...that 116,000 pounds

of farm animal excrement...

...is produced every second

in the United States alone.

That is enough waste per year to cover

every square foot of San Francisco...

...New York City, Tokyo, Paris...

...New Delhi, Berlin,

Hong Kong, London...

...Rio De Janeiro, Delaware, Bali,

Costa Rica, and Denmark combined.

Livestock operations on land

has caused, or created...

...more than 500

nitrogen-flooded dead zones...

...around the world in our oceans.

Comprise more than 95,000 square miles

of areas completely devoid of life.

So any meaningful discussion

about the state of our oceans...

...has to always begin

by frank discussions...

...about land-based animal agriculture...

...which is not what

our conservation groups-

Oceana being the largest one in the

world right now, the most influential.

As well as others. That's not what is

at the apex of their discussions.

I went on my favorite ocean-protection

organization's website...

...Surf rider Foundation,

to see what they're doing about this.

Mostly what I found were campaigns

about plastic bags and trash...

...but nothing about animal agriculture.

What is the number one coastal water

quality-issue polluter?

Like-? Yeah, I mean, a lot of it-

It's actually-

We call it, like, the "toxic cocktail."

Because it really is

this sort of diffuse source.

So it's, you know, heavy metal from tires

and brakes and cars, heavy metals.

It is these herbicides and pesticides.

It's really just kind of picking up

everything we leave on the ground...

...and collecting it together

and pushing it out into the ocean.

So it's hard to actually target,

like, one thing.

When we're doing our research

on this particular one, and run off...

...just kind of increasingly as we're

interviewing more and more people...

...it keeps coming up,

animal agriculture, as being...

And we read animal agriculture

as being the number one water polluter...

...considerably by more than any other...

Yeah, that's interesting.I guess it depends

on the regions that you focus on.

Like the urban areas, like where we are

here in Southern California...

...we don't see that, because there's

not a lot of agricultural farms...

...but if you look in the mid-Atlantic...

...Maryland, Virginia,

North Carolina, that region...

...I know there's a lot of poultry farms

and a lot of hog farms...

...and it's a huge waste issue.

I was surprised that not only did

they not focus on farm run off...

...but they also didn't mention

any campaigns...

...about how our oceans

are in near-collapse.

The U.N. reported that three-quarters

of the world's fisheries...

...are overexploited, fully exploited,

or significantly depleted...

...due to overfishing.

Oceans are under siege like never before.

Marine environments are in trouble.

If we don't wake up

and do something about it...

...we'll see fishless oceans

bytheyear2048.

That's the prediction from scientists.

When people look at fishing,

some times they only look at the animals...

...who are actually consumed by humans,

so we don't necessarily look...

...at all the animals

who are caught in the drift nets...

...all the other animals who are killed

in the industry. And when you look at...

Even the shrimping industry has done

a lot to devastate the planet as well...

...in terms of breaking down

natural barriers...

...that we have to protect them,

the islands.

We're at over28 billion animals

were pulled out of the ocean last year.

They're never given a chance to recover.

They don't multiply quickly.

They don't come back.

We're not giving them an opportunity.

The oceans are in complete collapse.

The large fish species

are nearing extinction.

The way fishing is done today,

to feed the demand...

...for90 million tons offish,

is primarily through massive fish nets.

For every single pound offish caught,

there is up to 5 pounds...

...of untargeted species trapped.

Such as dolphins, whales, sea turtles

and sharks, known as bi-kill.

If we're to imagine

this same practice happening...

...on the African savannah,

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