Finally, Democracy Now actually did a story about the devastating consequences of animal agriculture

Finally, after endless cajoling, the ice has broken – or, the glacial ice has melted – and Democracy Now actually did a story about the devastating consequences of animal agriculture – only 14 years after the debut of my radio program; better late than never, but almost too late to save the planet from the ravages of “meat”, dairy, egg, and fish consumption.

Democracy Now calls itself “the war and peace report” – and it could easily have commenced coverage of animal agriculture with its connection to war. Democracy Now presents itself as a champion of social justice issues, and it could easily examine a multitude of those in relation to animal agriculture. For these many years, Democracy Now could have been providing a service to its listeners and viewers exploring animal agriculture’s role in disease, poverty, world hunger, and energy crises.

While Democracy Now gives voice to oppressed people around the globe, other species are the acceptable “products” served by oppressed underpaid slashed-“food” fast-“food” workers, or the “gloves” worn in oppressed Olympic athletes’ gestures of defiance.

So today, it was the environment that introduced Democracy Now to animal agriculture, and more specifically, the water crisis in California. Democracy Now has thus far chosen to keep its audience ignorant of the fact that animal agriculture is the #1 cause of climate change, and instead presented climate-truth deniers such as “meat”-eating rancher-financed fibbin’ Bill McKibben as climate “experts”, the very people rightfully ridiculed by today’s guests Keegan Kuhn and Kip Andersen, producers of “Cowspiracy”. Perhaps it was the ridicule that Democracy Now brought on itself last week for blaming almonds, pistachios, and broccoli for the water crisis, all just a drop in the bucket – or a drop in the ocean – compared to animal agriculture, the biggest squanderer of resources on the planet.

It was almost as if Democracy Now wanted to say, okay, we’ll throw the vegans a bone with today’s coverage (of course, nobody mentioning “vegan” once throughout the piece), and we’ll introduce it with an absurd song about cows with guns to show that we are not all that serious about animal issues, just about what affects people and their ability to take long showers.

It was wonderful to finally see such dramatic revelations on Democracy Now, a truth seemingly so out of place there – and Kuhn and Andersen are to be commended for that. But I often wonder why advocates often opt for lesser estimates when credible information exists to make our arguments so much stronger. Why estimate that a pound of beef requires 2,500 gallons of water to “produce”, when the Stockholm International Water Institute tells us that it is 8,500 gallons? So that hamburger isn’t 660 gallons, but 2,125. Similarly, over the years, advocates continue to quote flawed UN FAO estimates of 18% for animal agriculture’s greenhouse gas contribution, when much more credible UN / World Bank estimates have emissions at at least 51%.

It was informative to see Richard Oppenlander and Will Tuttle addressing mass extinction and loss of species, but missing in action in this report were the innocent victims of animal agriculture, the imprisoned, the tortured, the murdered – perhaps whose story will be told on another day.

I found it ironic that Will Potter is featured bemoaning animal agriculture’s desire to keep us in the dark, while he is so pro-censorship of anti-HSUS criticism, given that that organization is one of the leading voices of deception regarding animal agriculture and environmental sustainability. That’s why it was somewhat disappointing hearing “Cowspiracy” producers using the outdated and misleading term “factory farms” in place of animal agriculture, as HSUS propagandists have declared “factory farms” the enemy, and “other” animal agriculture as “humane” and “sustainable”, even while grass-fed animals produce up to 400% the methane of animals harshly confined on “factory farms”.

So now that the ice has begun to melt, will the floodgates open at Democracy Now, and will it broaden its coverage to include vegan and animal issues and their impact on everything Democracy Now traditionally covers, or do we now go back to business as usual and the nonsense of the fibbin’ Bill McKibbens of the world who offer no real insight and no meaningful solutions? What will now be served in the Democracy Now cafeteria?

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/7/cowspiracy_as_california_faces_drought_film