Political groups and NGOs are, in most cases silent or muted when calling the public to the harmful impacts of modern agriculture on the environment. 

This foul play has recently been put into the spot light by various environmentalists. It came to my attention though, via the hugely insightful documentary ‘Cowspiracy’. This film exposes various well respected ‘environmental’ organisations such as; Greenpeace and The Sierra Club for glossing over the true impacts of the agricultural industry and almost denying the problem altogether. 

Will Anderson, the former director of Greenpeace, has been outspoken regarding this topic. He has accused such environmental organisations for not acknowledging the impacts of agriculture and bringing it squarely into the focus of the public. Additionally, he further alludes to the fact that some parties may be subject to donations from unions that are totally for the continual growth or stasis of the agricultural system.

Recently, however a blog post was penned by a Greenpeace representative which addressed the accusations put forth in the documentary and this can be found here. I think it is interesting to read this retort and to think that Greenpeace felt obliged to try and amend the allegations. 

Kip Anderson - Director Cowspiricy

This leads me neatly on to an exchange between Kip Anderson (the director of Cowspiracy) and the Animal Agricultural Alliance (AAA). When confronted with the question, posed by Anderson, “Do you give donations to environmental groups?” The representative from the AAA is thrown off kilter and responds with trepidation - “I don’t know that I want to comment on that.”. This leads one to believe, that an unsavoury truth may be veiled from public knowledge. 

A fantastic blog I have come across whilst researching this topic is ‘Vicious Vegan’ which endeavours to explore some of the same themes as this blog, as we'll as some more abstract ones, and is well worth a read.

I am not condemning the work that these organisations do, because they have undoubtedly aided global environmental awareness, and their work is admirable. However, I do believe that more needs to be done in the way of educating the public in terms of reducing their environmental impact via simple dietary adjustments. And this is predominantly in the hands of such organisations and they have a responsibility and ability to do the right thing.