Cowspiracy: Form 3 refelctions

In the last post, I gave a summary of what the documentary Cowspiracy is about and my thoughts on it. Form 3 watched a 15 minute summary of the documentary and were asked to write a brief reflection on what they watched. Below is a sample of their thoughts. Please note that all students have English as a second or third language and that the quotes have been abridged.

In the reflection below Tasha makes the link between deforestation for cattle ranching and climate change. She also talks about the potency of methane as a greenhouse gas.

"In my opinion, and from what I've seen in the video, raising cattle takes up a lot water and a lot of space which leads to cutting down trees in forest. This leads to deforestation. Deforestation plays a huge part in global warming because if there aren't trees left in this world then carbon dioxide won't be able to be taken in and there would be less oxygen given out.

Cows in this case also give out a greenhouse gas called methane, methane is worse compared to Carbon Dioxide since methane takes up 100 times more heat than carbon dioxide does. My point here is that the more meat we eat, more methane will be given out which rises the global temperature, which leads to the melting of the ice and to the rise of sea levels which soon may cover up almost the entire planet.In order to prevent this, there is a way we could help. Vegetarian [sic] is a good way because it decreases our consumption on meat and it also help us to become healthy."

Jenny takes a more critical view. I agree with her assertions of over-exaggeration in the movie and that vegans are still causing some harm, although the idea of the same damage can be challenged by the idea that most of the energy from grazing is lost and not put into meat.

"I have one point to make: they said deforestation (clearing land to grow crops, plus, feeding livestock) is damaging the planet’s so-called ‘lungs.’ Aren’t the plants that they eat, grown on that same land too? Don’t plants consume the very huge amount of water too? Just saying, vegans are also harming the planet, no different from non-vegans....

I feel that the video was pretty informative, however, I think it was being a little pushed and exaggerated with numbers and how turning into a vegan is the only way to save the earth."

Zhi Heng and Prathna point to people as the big problem.

ZH: "Cattle in USA is the biggest cause of greenhouse gases because when a cattle [sic] digest food, it creates methane, Methane made today's amount of greenhouse gases increases rapidly...

Nontheless, it's not the animals fault. In last two century[sic], our population increased rapidly together with animals..."

P: "In the movie/ short clip that we were shown, it says methane is created from a cow's digestive system- and that cow's produce more green-house gas then all vehicles combined. It also mentions that if you reduce methane emission, the level of the atmosphere goes down or decreases- but we are forgetting more methane would be produced because of our growing population, as our numberS grow or increase, animal agriculture would too as we need to be fed. So i wouldn't put all the blame on the animal agriculture or cows when our population is multiplying minutes by minute."

Kenneth makes the link to what we are doing at KTJ.

"I was shocked when I watched that video. I think that the amount of water needed to feed animals or making meat is huge. I was shocked that 51% of greenhouse gases were given out by animals. I just realised that cattle farming can cause deforestation. I think it is also our fault because we demand a huge amount of meat. I think that meat free Monday is a good idea in KTJ because it saved a huge amount of water used to make meat."