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Kip Anderson's Criticisms Of 'Cowspiracy'

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Kip Anderson of the movie documentary “Cowspiracy” shares a UN study states that the meat and dairy industries, and factory farming currently taking place on the planet emit more fossil fuels into the atmosphere than our entire transportation sector, including cars, boats, trains, planes. The study claims that as much as 18% of greenhouse gas emissions come from animal agriculture, while transportation exhaust totals 13% of all emissions. These emissions are split between three main contributors: carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide, and methane gases. With each gas, animals emissions comes out as a leading contributors with 51%, 32 billion tons, of CO2, 65% of nitrous oxide, and 26% of methane gas emissions directly or indirectly from our …show more content…

Citing that all life requires death, Fairlie insists that a strictly vegetarian and even vegan diet has its own way of destroying the planet. His main criticisms lie with our poor use of the land we have reserved for agriculture, advocating that the “growing of monocrops…will never be sustainable,” and insisting that the only way sustainability can be achieved is “participation in perennial polycultures.” What does this mean? A controversial topic in itself, monocropping is the cultivation of one single crop year after year on the same soil. Though economically efficient, the controversy emerges with the damage to soil ecology, depletion of the soils’ resources, and leaves the crop defenseless to an invading insect or microorganism, monocropping is the standard method of farming used worldwide. Fairlie wishes that humans would find a way to “draw sustenance from where they live without destroying that place,” as monocropping often does, asserting that knowing where our food is coming from is the step in this

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Is eating meat a detrimental threat to the environment? This debate over meat’s involvement in the global warming crisis was what inspired Nicolette Hahn Niman to write, “The Carnivore’s Dilemma.” Niman hoped writing, “The Carnivore’s Dilemma,” would cause her audience to understand that eating meat, raised on traditional farms, was a superior alternative to vegetarianism. Niman supported her claim by explaining how industrialized farms and vegetarians produce more of the three greenhouse gases that caused global warming, than that produced by traditional farms. Niman’s article fell short of being effective due to flaws in her supporting evidence and conclusion.

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Michael Pollan’s alternative to Factory farming has given a huge insight into a better ethics on food. In “The Animals: Practicing Complexity” Michael Pollan writes about a polyface farm and how it works. The goal of a polyface farm is to emotionally, economically, and environmentally enhance agriculture. Everything on a polyface farm has the potential to be helpful to something else on the farm. Pollan states “The chicken feed not only feeds the broilers but, transformed into chicken crap, feeds the grass that feeds the cows that, as I was about to see, feeds the pigs and the laying hens” (Pollan 345).

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The three essays assigned this week had several common threads running through them. The strongest core theme is the rapid change in the food cycle in America and the vast changes that have taken place in the way by which we grow, produce, and process the food that average Americans eat. The food we eat now is drastically different from what our grandparents grew up eating and the three essays each examine that in a different way. Another theme is the loss of knowledge by the average consumer about where their food comes from, what it is composed of, and what, if any, danger it might pose to them. “Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear” by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele is a harsh look at the realities of food production in a country where large corporations, like Monsanto, have been allowed to exploit laws and loopholes to bend farmers and consumers to their

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He used the average household income of local African farmers as an example of the ineffectiveness of organic agriculture; however, his views have created a number of opponents to his ideas. For example, Ann Lappe, author of “Diet for a Hot Planet” had this to say, “Paarlberg doesn’t get what it means to be organic. Organic farming isn’t just about not using chemicals. Organic farmers improve output by tapping a sophisticated understanding of biological systems to build soil fertility and manage pests and weeds through techniques that include double-dug beds, intercropping, composting, manures, cover crops, crop sequencing, and natural pest control. It could be aptly dubbed ‘knowledge-intensive’ farming.”

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With the United States having numerous amounts of health issues and food outbreaks yearly, it is safe to say that we need a hopeful idea for the future to bring healthy and natural foods. Many people believe industrial/factory farming should continue to increase, but it’s quite the contrary, industrial/factory farming needs to be put to end and the only type of farming that should be expanding is the system used in Polyface farm, which is holon farming. In the text, “The Animals: Practicing Complexity”, by Michael Pollan, he discusses Joel Salatins’ Polyface farm and its complex system. All the animals depend on each other and Salatin is basically imitating a natural ecosystem where there is no such thing as waste. However, in the text, “What

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The article was written in response to the statement farming and food production is leading to climate change. Niman, being a rancher who raises cattle, goats, and turkeys, effectively frames the situation logically by providing credible statistics and examples to help the reader better understand the impacts of different methods of food production. She does this by providing specific information regarding the greenhouse gases involved, being carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides. Niman, the rhetor, has written this article to try and inform the readers about the differences between traditional style and industrial style methods of food production. She has directed the article towards those concerned about the carbon footprint, we as individuals, are leaving

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For example, the inhabitants of Alaska. Alaska receives two-hundred inches of snow each year; which is an impossible climate to grow plants. Alaskan’s buy their food from supermarkets which are shipped from around the world. People can eat healthier by eating local foods, but they can not be ignorant of mother

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To be a grass farmer means that one raises animals for meat, eggs, wool, etc.; however, the farmer views these animals simply as a single part of the food chain and sees grass as the “keystone species” in the whole process. The farmer Joel, in The Omnivore’s Dilemma” said he would even venture to call himself a sun farmer because grass is simply the way we capture solar energy. Grass is the key component of his farming because grass is the only source of food for the animals. A grass farmer believes in the advantages of grass fed meat and practices the strategy. In this kind of food chain grass is the base; then animals are added; the animals eat the grass; the animals produce (wool, eggs, meat, milk, etc); their wastes (fecal and slaughter) create a compost; which is used on the soil to grow grass that will continuously provide food for the animals and indirectly for humans.

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In the early 2000 Al Gore once said, “The planet is in distress and all the attention is on Paris Hilton.” In the same theme, Michael Pollan writes, “Why Bother?”, an article from The New York Times Magazine published in 2008 telling Americans they are too consumed with themselves and maintain a “cheap-energy mind”. And here, in 2016 climate change is seriously happening and the nation is still not addressing the gravity of the issue and why we should indeed bother to make changes. It is time that this nation discerns that climate change is real and it is happening as we speak. Climate change is a threat to each and every one of us and imperative to the survival of life on this planet.

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There are many today who decry scientific advances in food production, insect control of crops, and bio-engineering crops to be resistant to drought and disease. Some espouse only growing food organically as would have been done in Moliere’s time. Were they preaching only to their choirs and leaving the scientific establishment alone to feed the rest of the world, it would be easily overlooked but some have become powerful advocates in positions of mighty influence on the political stage and in mass media. But for purpose of greed alone and not because it is good for man as proof abounds that ancient farming techniques fall far short in feeding a burgeoning world

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For instance he considers Joel Alatin's opinion about "vegetarian utopia" that it is supported by animal rights activists,although it is a fact that in some places people cannot grow crops because the environment is not able to do it and the author has witness this in his own country where rain does not occur enough to grow crops. "Vegetarian utopia" illustrates a place where people stopped eating meat, but then they would need enormous portions of vegetables which would be unnatural and bad for the health of the environment as farmers would use chemicals to adapt in the new increased demand which would harm the earth and all the living organisms that live upon it. With logos the author wins his audience trust and inclines them to his ideas by leading them with reasons and using

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This documentary unfairly stated that cattle is the sole factor of our world’s environmental issues because they emit greenhouse gases and over-consume water. However, in reality they are not the only ones who are using water, creating greenhouse gas, and affecting the land and ocean. Our planet is facing a lack of water, and according to the documentary, the cows are one of the major causes of this. If the problem is water waste, then look at how we, the people, are using it. Almost everybody uses water to shower, wash dishes, and flush toilets everyday.

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According to a study published in Nature, scientists believe by 2050 eighty percent increase in global greenhouse gases could be avoided, if human diets were equally mediterranean, pescatarian, and vegetarian. Truthfully, less animal products are what is best for the future of the planet, eliminating dairy and egg products would reduce emissions the most as confirmed by Marco Springmann

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Meat production produces enormous amounts of CO2 in the air, which is a major cause of global warming, and are thus a reason to stop

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Feeding is a basic human need. The way which food is been produced has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000 (Food Inc). Therefore, during the last decades questions and arguments have come out to predict what the future of agriculture will be. Nowadays, because of increasing population pressure, alternatives are needed. On the one hand, traditional practices do not conserve the quality of soils: stocks of organic matter are rapidly depleted and erosion pulls fine particles out of the surface horizons.

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