I would normally take an opportunity like this to watch 80s films or catch up on some box set, but I decided that instead i'd watch some documentaries. I'd been recommended quite a few following my viewing of the The Cove, Racing Extinction, and Earthlings and decided to go for Cowspiracy and Blackfish.
If I was to recommend one film to watch out of all the above I'd suggest Cowspiracy. I'll warn you it's graphic at times, but it very clearly lays out the facts about Co2 emissions. The most shocking part in the whole film is the realisation that the only thing that is really going to make a difference to Co2 emissions is reducing animal agriculture. Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation. Here's an infographic from the website to help demonstrate the facts:
There's so much to take in from the film, but it does make it clear that we should all be eating less meat. If everyone in the US stopped eating meat for just 1 day a week for a year, it's the equivalent of taking 7.6 million cars off the road (source: Environmental Working Group). If we all stopped eating meat it's said that we'd essentially stop world hunger, have enough land for the growing population, reduce antibiotic resistance, reduce all animal suffering, and in the UK - reduce the strain on the NHS. So y'know, just a few things. (source - Independent). We'll never, ever stop eating meat altogether, but we could definitely all go meat free for 1 day. Suddenly i'm realising why so many people are going Vegan. It's made me think quite seriously about my diet. I'm considering going vegetarian for a week as part of this whole thing I'm doing here, it would be interesting to see how I get on and how I feel at the end.
Blackfish - The story about the Killer Whale Tilikum who was brutally stolen from his mother, taken to a water park and trained to be a performing Orca. Out of frustration/mental disorder/depression Tilikum killed a trainer. He was then transferred to SeaWorld who knew full well what had happened, but bought him to reproduce, and to continue to perform. He was kept in a tiny area for 2/3rds of his life, was socially damaged and bullied by the other whales. He went on to kill another trainer. It's a very tragic, horrific story of abuse, corporate exploitation and unnecessary death. Many people boycott and demonstrate against SeaWorld, and all animal water parks. In November 2015 SeaWorld announced that they'll be phasing out using Orcas for performances, and they're recently had a change of management, but the very latest news shows that their latest strategy is to infiltrate animal-rights groups to spy on their strategy, so cover-ups and underhand tactics seems to still be company policy.
As i'm trying to take this in tiny steps, just watching the film is my step in the right direction. But an obvious action is to never, ever go to a Animal Water Park and to discourage those that would. Even without seeing this film i'd never consider it, it's not entertainment in my eyes, but people still attend these parks all the time, not knowing anything about what's really going on, and that is a troubling thought.
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