On this day in vegan history · June 26, 2014
Cowspiracy Asks the Question the Big Green Groups Wouldn't
A crowdfunded documentary walked into the offices of the environmental movement and asked why nobody wanted to talk about cows.
The facts
- Premiere
- June 26, 2014, Los Angeles
- Directors
- Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn
- Funding
- 1,449 Indiegogo backers, $117,092 raised, 217% of goal
- Netflix release
- September 15, 2015, executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret premiered in Los Angeles on June 26, 2014, directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn. The film argued that animal agriculture's toll on water, land, and greenhouse gas emissions was the elephant in the room for mainstream environmental groups, and followed Andersen as he tried to get straight answers out of the organizations he called on. It was built almost entirely on small donations: 1,449 people backed it on Indiegogo for $117,092, more than double its funding goal. A year later, an updated cut executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio landed on Netflix and carried the argument to a far bigger audience than any indie documentary usually gets.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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The film explores the impacts of animal agriculture on the environment, examining such environmental concerns as climate change, water use, deforestation, and ocean dead zones, and investigates the policies of several environmental organizations on the issue.
Wikipedia's summary of the film's subject
Source: Wikipedia -
the scientific consensus is that livestock contribute 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, far lower than the 51% stated by the film and the source article.
Doug Boucher, reviewing the film for the Union of Concerned Scientists blog, as quoted in Wikipedia's account of the critical response
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Cowspiracy put animal agriculture on the climate agenda at a moment when the biggest environmental groups mostly left it off, and the DiCaprio-backed Netflix release gave that argument a mainstream stage it hadn't had before.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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