Saving the Cows, Our Planet, and Ourselves
“Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” book review
In the recently published “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” (an expansion to the award winning documentary Cowspiracy) authors Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn expose the alarming truths about animal agriculture. Playing a major role in greenhouse gas production, deforestation, species extinction, ocean dead zones, water use, health issues and diseases, along with a variety of other impacts, Andersen and Kuhn take no mercy revealing how animal agriculture affects animals, our planet, and ourselves.
Investigating from within the source itself, Andersen and Kuhn go inside factory, free-range, and family farms to examine first hand how animal agriculture abuses and mistreats animals as well as taking a toll on the planet’s eco-system. Taking their research even further, the authors visit some of America’s leading health and conservation organization to find answers to questions the meat, dairy, and fishing industries doesn’t want you to know. Finally, the authors review the negative roll animal agriculture plans on human health. The book is concluded with a few enlightening chapters on how to take the knowledge you absorbed from the book and use it to better your health, spare animal lives, and improve our degrading ecosystem.
Overall, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret did a profound job at addressing the controversial topic of animal agriculture. Through the use of figures and graphs, the authors draw the reader’s attention to key information and help summarize their often lengthy statistics paragraphs. By defining new, unfamiliar, or commonly misconceived terms, such as “factory farms” ( thoroughly defined on page 77) the book further emphasizes the importance of the what these terms actually mean and makes the book easier to comprehend for those new to the subject. The book even contains a thorough works cited section at the end for any reader who choose to fact check the author information, debate their views, or further investigate the topic themselves. In doing so, the authors establish a sense of credibility on writing about animal agriculture by addressing the sources in which they derived their knowledge from. Also, just by tackling the topic of animal agriculture, the authors address pathos by playing to one’s emotions through their graphic descriptions of what goes on inside farms and factories as well as playing to logos through statistics and research based evidence.
Personally, I have nothing negative to say about this book. Try as I might, I can’t find a single line that seemed out of place or a paragraphs whose importance I question. Feel free to call me bias since I am an anti-animal agriculture vegan ,but I challenge any reader of this book to say something negative about how it’s written or what it promotes, based on fact rather than your own opinion or views. Go ahead… try it. I’m sure any questions that may arise have already been answered somewhere in the book’s extensive coverage of animal agriculture and how it affects a wide range of the Earth’s eco-systems. Maybe instead of reflecting on the book and ways the authors could have improved it, we should spend time reflecting on the message the book is trying to tell us and improve our lives as well as others from it.
Upon reading the last line of “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret”, I was left wanting more; more ways to cut down my impacts the environment, more ways to share with others what I had learn. This book opened my eyes to how the choices I make each day are affecting the world around me. Anderson and Kuhn could not have written a more enlightening, well- rounded, informative book on animal agriculture and I applaud them for tackling such a controversial topic. “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” is a sensational read for anyone looking to inform themselves on what they’re eating and who or what it affects. I can almost guarantee you’ll be rethinking your diet following its conclusion or left with a new understanding of animal agriculture.
As the book says….“The animal agriculture wake-up call is ringing now. You awake yet?”
M. Rose Swanson
