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Gisselle Dominguez

Szetela

English 1010

3 October 2017

Cowspiracy

Think of your home and the only place you have ever known, being destroyed

everyday little by little and everyday you and billions of other people are making it worse

whether you know you’re doing it or not. Global warming has been a huge controversy

between the public for many years now. Many people have gone back and forth in the

argument of if it’s true and if so, why? Andersen, and his companion Keeghan Kuhn,

released their documentary on June 2014 titled, Cowspiracy. In the documentary

Andersen uses logos, ethos, and pathos to try to convince everyone that doesn’t know

about what is going on in the agricultural industry and people who are trying to save our

world to really think and change the things they are doing to help make the world a

better, cleaner, safer place. Andersen does this by showing videos and pictures, using

facts and statistics, and interviewing many people. Andersen really tries to convince

people to see from his point of view by using all 3 of these appeals.

Andersen states that “animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation,

water consumption and pollution, is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the

transportation industry, and is a primary driver of rainforest destruction, species

extinction, habitat loss, topsoil erosion, ocean ‘dead zones,’ and virtually every other

environmental ill. Yet it goes on, almost entirely unchallenged.”

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Andersen starts off by explaining that he wanted to help change and he tried by

taking shorter showers, turning off the lights when he didn’t need them, turning off the

water while he brushed his teeth, recycling, changing the lightbulbs in his house, and

riding his bike everywhere he went. He did the most he could until, he stumbled upon a

post on facebook that lead him to an article written by the United Nations stating that

“raising livestock produces more greenhouse gases than the admissions of the entire

transportation sector. Cows and other farm animals produce more methane from their

digestive process than cars, trucks, trains, boats, and planes combined.” (Andersen

4:10) As Andersen continues to investigate he is confused on why these facts are not

plastered everywhere in the environmental community. He looks up the largest

environmental organizations websites such as Greenpeace, Sierra Club, 350.org,

Amazon Watch, and Oceana and was shocked to see they had nothing on the

agricultural industry.

Andersen forms his credibility on this topic by researching, analyzing, and

personally going to different organizations and interviewing multiple founders,

professors, and farmers. He goes to people that have had experience in these things

and people who have studied and asked themselves these same questions. He goes to

multiple different sources to be able to build his ethos appeal and convince the

audience that what he is putting out there for everyone to hear is true.

As Andersen continues to research he builds up his ethos by going to various

organizations and setting up interviews with founders and directors and also by going to

multiple environmental groups and college professors who teach environmental related

subjects. He interviews each of the professors and directors and asks them questions
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on why they think these things are happening and why no one is willing to act or even

simply talk about them. Many of the people he interviews tell him the same things and

the same reasons, leading the audience to believe that if college professors and even

people who are in these environmentalist groups say this, it must be true.

As the documentary progresses he learns that many of the organizations do not

answer his questions or do not want to discuss the topic. The organization,

Greenpeace, does not even let him get an interview with them. He doesn’t understand

why everyone is trying to keep it under until he talks to the farmers and professors

about what they think. As he goes on he learns that many of the organizations have

never spoken about it because of the popular demand of meat and because it simply is

in our daily routines and behavior. It would be almost impossible to make everyone on

the earth become a vegetarian or vegan. Although it seems impossible Andersen

believes it may be the only way to save our planet at this point. He interviews with

farmers who explain that there is no way to fully be able to sustain the whole world even

if we went from giving the farm animals grains to being grass fed.

Agriculture not only affects global warming but it also affects the land. 2-5 acres

of land are used per cow. Livestock covers 45% of the Earth’s total land. Andersen also

states that one acre of rainforest is cleared every second. With these facts Andersen

really helps to build up his logos appeal. He also goes on to state that it has been the

largest mass extinction in 65 million years. When Andersen went to interview the

executive director from the Rainforest Action Network he saw that on their website palm

oil was one of the reasons they had listed for deforestation. Palm oil is responsible for
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26 million acres being cleared. However, the livestock is responsible for 136 million

acres lost to date. This confused Andersen even more than he already was.

As Andersen continues on his journey he speaks to the program director from

Amazon Watch. She explains to Andersen that one of the reasons people may not want

to talk to people about this subject is because many of the activists that have ever

openly spoken against the agricultural industry have been killed before. An example of

this was Sister Dorothy Stang, a nun who lived in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest.

She openly spoke out against cattle ranching and deforestation. One night when she

walked home she was brutally gunned down at point-blank range by a hired gun from

the cattle industry. Over 1,100 activists have been killed in the last 20 years in Brazil.

The film backer also calls Andersen to let him know that they won’t be able to fund his

film anymore because of the “growing controversial subject matter.” Many people don’t

want to speak up about these things because the agricultural business is so big and

only getting bigger. The bigger an industry is the more power they have and they can

sue anyone who is against them. By the end of the documentary Andersen is afraid to

finish his film because of all of these things that could happen to him and what people

will say or think when he releases his film.

Andersen also does well in going towards his pathos appeal. Throughout the

documentary he goes to different cattle ranches and farms and shows videos of how the

animals there are treated and how they are used for some time and when they are no

good anymore they are sold off to feed people. He also speaks to Howard Lyman, a

man who was sued by cattle mean for speaking about animal agriculture on the Oprah

Winfrey show. Lyman explains that if we stopped giving all the grains to the farm
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animals that we have we could definitely be able to help all of the starving children in

the world if we would just simply turn those grains into food. The growing population

isn’t necessarily the problem they say. We could have more than enough food.

Andersen shows pictures of children not being able to eat and he does this to make

people feel like they need to help and make a difference for the children. Make a

difference in the way we, as the audience, see the things that he has seen and try to

learn from his point of view. He shows and explains to us that a lot of things seem

almost impossible but we can always try and he inspires the audience and gives them

hope and a desire to want to make a difference for themselves and for others.

By the end of the documentary he continues on with his pathos appeal by getting

short clips of all of the people he had interviewed and they each said things that make

people feel inspired and make people want to be better and change for the better and

give them hope. He also speaks about how after learning all of these things he himself

became vegan and he shares his experience of doubt but in the end he explains that he

felt good being able to give back to the Earth after “she” had given so much to us. When

he speaks to Josh Tetrick from “Beyond Eggs” he states, “...when you take the animal

out you take the greenhouse gas issue out, and you take the food safety issues out...but

one thing that’s amazing is, I think you put our values back in, you put values like

compassion, and integrity and kindness. Values that are natural to human beings.”

Lyman also says, “Do what you can do as well as you can do it everyday of your life.

You will end up dying one of the happiest individuals that has ever died… you can

change the world. You must change the world.” Andersen finishes off by saying, “... the

only way to sustainably and ethically live on this planet with 7 billion other people is to
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live an entirely plant-based vegan diet...all this talk about sustainability sounded like our

planet was on some sort of life support. I don’t want her to simply survive or to sustain,

but to thrive. She’s given so much to us for so long, it was time to give back. It felt good.

It was an alignment.” He puts in all of these quotes and says these inspiring things to

make the audience feel like they can do it if they try and they are not the only people

trying to make a difference. He puts the audience in a position where they feel as

though they need to have the strength to do it not only for themselves but for their

families and future families. He puts hope in your heart and makes you want to be a

better person.

Throughout the whole film you really got to see and think about all the things that

have been going on in our world. You get to better understand the things that have been

happening and the things that will happen if we don’t do anything to help the world that

we live in. Andersen tries to give us a whole new perspective on our lives and

throughout the film you can see that his intentions are genuine. He uses everything he

needs to be able to make a difference and make everything intriguing and convincing.

Andersen did very well in convincing the audience using logos, ethos, and

pathos. He used all of the appeals to his advantage. He definitely used many statistics

and hard facts, he interviewed many different professionals, and he also tugged on

heart strings by putting in videos and pictures of sad animals and kids and by not only

making it sad but also giving hope and telling his audience that they can make a

difference if they choose to. Andersen made it hard for people to look back and think

that they don’t have any reason to change. He gave the audience the feeling and the

words that would make them want to change and not only did he say inspiring things but
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he gave them actual reasons as to why they should change so they can’t say he didn’t

provide them with facts. He did very good and he balanced all of the appeals out equally

to make a moving and authentic film.

Works Cited

Andersen, Kip. “Cowspiracy.” Andersen Kip:. 26 June 2014