Agribusiness is Destroying the World as We Know It

Henry Savage
Jan 19, 2016
3 min read

After watching the movie Cowspiracy, a documentary by Kip Anderson and promoted/produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, with a close friend, I came to realize my whole life the society I lived in was again lying to me about something that we use everyday.

Basically Anderson puts the entire livestock industry and prominent conservationalist groups under a microscope, and force them to answer questions that they've been secretly hiding from for years.

Our whole lives we're told to turn the lights off when we leave a room, take quick showers, ride a bike instead of car, and little things like that and we'll all be able to save the world. That's simply not true.

In the film Anderson shows two quotes from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that really put this issue into perspective.

"Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from ALL transportation." [1]

"Transportation exhaust is responsible for 13% of all greenhouse gas emissions."[2]

All of the world's animal production causes more damage to world than all of the world's transportation combined, but all the environtmental and conservational groups have to say on the matter is to limit water usage and ride our bikes more often...

Kip Anderson knew there was something fishy going on, and through investigation and talking with ex-leaders of certain conservation groups, he revealed that these groups in one way or another are being silenced in order to continue the success of the agribusiness.

Instead of the population realizing that the food they're eating is causing the most damage to our earth, they will have you believe it is just our cars and other greenhouse gas emissions.

In one segment of the film, Anderson shows how much water it takes to make just one hamburger, which the average American loves to eat on a weekly basis. Due to feeding, watering, and raising the cattle into beef it takes thousands of gallons of water just to get a pound of beef at the end of it.

The actual statistic is 1,847 gallons of water to make 1 pound of beef.

In Anderson's Cowspiracy, he used the anology of the McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and that it woud take approximately 660 gallons of water just to make 1 of the burgers.

The average human uses 80-100 gallons of water per day, at home. So why are giving all the water to the agribusiness, and animals that we over-produce to be slaughtered for human consumption? When we have droughts in California, our own country, and even worse South America, Africa, and other parts of the world.

This leads to the next quotes from the film.

"Livestock and livestock feed occupies 1/3 of the earth's ice-free land."[3]

"Livestock covers 45% of the earth's total land."[4]

and the big one:

"Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species exstinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction."[5]

Due to the destruction this business causes by clearing whole jungles/forrests to raise animals and grow food to feed to these animals, predator animals hunted gruesomely due to a fear of them hurting livestock, and greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, and N2O) the earth is destined to be unresourceful in easily the next 100 years.

There are 7.5 billion people on the planet, and there are 70 billion animals for livestock...

WE ARE PRODUCING ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED 10 BILLION PEOPLE, YET THERE ARE STILL HUMANS STARVING TO DEATH, FAT RICH PEOPLE, AND VERY WELL-FED CATTLE AND LIVESTOCK.

Where did we go wrong? And why is our government, environmentalist groups, and media shying away from the fact that the agribusiness is the leading cause of the destruction of this earth.

Worst of all, "82% of starving children live in countries, where the food is fed to livestock, and the animals are eaten by western countries."[6]

America and other countries are literally fueling this business.

We are tricked and told otherwise to believe our world needs something different like more electric cars, but what is needed is an extreme diet change.

Every single person needs to limit their meat intake, and switch to more noodles, pasta, or plant based foods. There are so many out there that give use more nutrients than red meat ever could.

Watch this documentary on Netflix. Cowspiracy. You will never look back after seeing it.