Breakthrough or Bull?
Is that fair to blame everything on the cows? The documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, directed by Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn, reveals the main cause of climate change. The massive changes in climate were not down to cars and oil after all, but it was in fact caused by cows. Anderson and Kuhn prove their claim by providing experts’ opinions and relevant data. According to them, animal agriculture is the most harmful thing to the Earth; therefore, we should go vegan. Their argument has good use of ethos, pathos, and provides interesting evidence; however, it also has hasty generalization and stacking the deck fallacies. The first strength is using pathos to persuade the audience. They use a lot of emotional
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They try to establish their credibility by doing interviews with environmental experts, but it just doesn’t work. Most people chosen to interview are one-sided. After doing some research, I found out many figures in the movie such as Howard Lyman, Dr. Will Tuttle, Dr. Richard Oppenlander, or Dr. Michael A. Klaper are vegan themselves. Howard Lyman, according to his own published book, is an American farmer and animal rights activist known for promoting vegan nutrition and organic farming (“Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from The Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat” 3). Dr. Michael A. Klaper, a physician in True North Health Center, is similar; he has been a vegan for 32 years (“Vegetarian Physician Debunks Dietary Myths”). How even-handed is it to interview vegans about eating meat? Not so much!
Moreover, the filmmakers also create hasty generalization in their movie. They jump to the conclusion that “animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction” (“Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret”) while they have too-limited evidence. The numbers brought out to prove this claim come to nowhere. There is no reliable source to back up this data. The number really impress the audience, but at the same time, it raises a question in viewers’ minds about its credibility and
Against Meat Or Not? In the article “Against Meat” written by Jonathan Safran Foer, the author attempts to state why he becomes a vegetarian. Foer begins by telling an emotional story of his grandmother’s relationship to food. Then he presents his own muddled relationship with vegetarianism up through parenthood.
The objective of the film was to influence viewers to switch to a plant-based diet while avoiding animal consumption. Anderson and Kuhn utilize various visual techniques and rhetorical appeals to ethos and logos to support their argument that the causes of many diseases can be linked back to diet. While the film uses clear rhetorical techniques to present its argument, the overall argument is ineffective due to its broad claim and distorted presentation of positions. The first rhetorical strategy used by the film that will be analyzed is the appeal to pathos. An example of this would be the woman crying because she has to take medicine for the rest of her life.
In An Animal’s Place, Michael Pollan describes the growing acknowledgement of animal rights, particularly America’s decision between vegetarianism and meat-eating. However, this growing sense of sentiment towards animals is coupled with a growing sense of brutality in farms and science labs. According to Pollan, the lacking respect for specific species of animals lies in the fact that they are absent from human’s everyday lives; enabling them to avoid acknowledgment of what they are doing when partaking in brutality towards animals. He presents arguments for why vegetarianism would make sense in certain instances and why it would not and ultimately lead to the decision of eating-meat while treating the animals fairly in the process. Pollan
Summary In this article “Against Meat” Jonathan Safran Foer describes his personal experience with struggling whether he eats meat or not and what he went through to become a vegetarian, his main reason was he didn’t want animals to suffer. Foer had a lot of influence in his life, starting with his grandmother who he considered her as a role model he loved her passion with food, although she had one recipe
Is eating meat a detrimental threat to the environment? This debate over meat’s involvement in the global warming crisis was what inspired Nicolette Hahn Niman to write, “The Carnivore’s Dilemma.” Niman hoped writing, “The Carnivore’s Dilemma,” would cause her audience to understand that eating meat, raised on traditional farms, was a superior alternative to vegetarianism. Niman supported her claim by explaining how industrialized farms and vegetarians produce more of the three greenhouse gases that caused global warming, than that produced by traditional farms. Niman’s article fell short of being effective due to flaws in her supporting evidence and conclusion.
He discovers that a majority of the advertisements written on organic products are not remotely true to the treatment of the animals. “A charge often levied against organic agriculture is that it is more philosophy than science. There's some truth to this indictment, if that it what it is, though why organic farmers should feel defensive about it is itself a mystery, a relic, perhaps, of our fetishism of science as the only credible tool with which to approach nature” (Pollan 225). Pollan sees that a lot of organic farmers feel threatened when people question their different methods of farming, but Pollan tries to explain that if it truly is a practice that is successful and forthcoming then there is no need to feel threatened. However Pollan notes a discrepancy in the way a majority of organic farmers advertise their products.
This short story explains and questions how people find eating animals morally acceptable. Steiner 's short story explains that whenever people think these animals are being treated respectfully they are being ignorant to the fact of how these animals are truly treated; Steiner brings up the fact of how an animals typical horrid life is and how it transitions from its horrid life to being killed by a butcher in a matter of seconds. Moreover, Steiner also adheres to the topic of how unacceptable, it is to kill these animals just for human consumption. Steiner 's purpose in writing this short story is to display to us the fact that eating any animal is not only wrong, but it is just downright unacceptable as it is mass murder of these innocent animals. Finally, Steiner tries to define at his best, what a strict vegan truly
Fraser's utilization of humor works to keep the reader or the audience engaged, makes their work memorable, and provides comic relief which overall, greatly contributes to her arguments for and against vegetarianism. Humor positively contributes to Fraser's overall argument and allows the reader to engage in her writing, without the possibility of them becoming uninterested. Since her essay works to argue for and against vegetarianism; a topic in which plentiful people are listless about, Fraser must employ humor to captivate her audience. For example, Fraser begins to talk percentages, “People who call themselves vegetarians somewhere between 4 and 10 percent of us, depending on the definition; only 1 percent of Americans are vegans, eating no animal products at all” (Fraser 546). Due to the fact that she speaks about numbers in her first three sentences of
In the article, “Is It Possible to be a Conscientious Meat Eater”, the authors argue that processed meat can greatly affect the many things in our everyday life. Sunaura and Alexander’s argument is significantly unreliable because of the certain professions both authors yield. As stated in the article “Sunaura is an artist, writer, and activist in Oakland.” “Alexander’s profession is studying philosophy, and ethics in Athens, Georgia.” This shows that neither of them are qualified to argue in the subject of conscientious meat eaters.
Joel Salatin, the Polyface Farms owner, has a strong opinion on how necessary it is to have a healthy area for animals to be raised in order for everyone to have food on their tables that was well taken care of. Salatin is arguing the fact that organic animals should be used among all Americans. Within the video, the farm owner uses pathos by stating the fact the chickens never see chlorine on his farm and do not get plump as they do in large factories. Along with that, Joel brought up the fact that the cows are able to graze the farms and fertilize on their own rather than having machine made products. On top of pathos, the speaker uses ethos to catch the audiences attention.
Growing up with a pescetarian mother (eating no meat other than fish) and omnivore father has not been the easiest of tasks. My mother likes to think she is holier-than-thou because of her diet, while my father just sits and laughs in the corner while eating a stack of ribs. When I read Alan Richmands excerpt “Fork It Over: My Beef with Vegans” I identified with his experiences with vegans because they were what I had experienced with my pescetarian mother over the years. Despite non meat eaters trying to convert meat eaters through persistent ranting, describing in great detail how the animals are raised and slaughtered (guilt tripping), and by trying to demonstrate that food made without animal products can taste just as good as those made with animal products a person can still make the decision to eat meat and enjoy it.
As diets and health become more and more of a public concern in America. Two authors weigh in on their opinions on how the American public should handle the problem of obesity as well as their solutions to the overwhelming issue. In one article, “Against Meat,” published on the New York Times website in 2009, points out that the solution to obesity should be vegetarianism. Johnathan Foer who is a vegetarian, claims that his diet and way of living is his the way of improving health in the American public. Foer’s article provides a sense of humor as well as personal stories to attempt to persuade his audience for the ethical treatment of animals along with his personal solution for his own health and the health of his family.
The documentary Cowspiracy, overall, wants to tell us about the truth behind animal agriculture, which heavily affects the survival of our planet. Basically, the documentary said that animal agriculture is responsible for most of the greenhouse gases that lead to global warming, which also affects our planet. The goal of this documentary is to make us believe that the meat industry, and by extension the fast food industry, are the causes that lead to most of our environmental issues. Also, the documentary stated that the amount of water that is used for cows and other livestock is way too much and our planet will gradually face a lack of water. The solution that they propose is just to become vegetarians, which will solve everything.
“I asked myself a question: "Knowing what I know, why am I not a vegetarian?"’ Graham Hill, an inspiring speaker, introduced a new way to eat. During his speech on TED Talk, he explains to his audience how eating meat has affected the world. In a calm and humorous tone, Hill proposes his purpose. He explains to his audience by becoming a “weekday veg” you will live a better live, it’s great compromise that will help people, animals, and the environment.
Veganism is a foolproof method to provide the answers the Earth needs, especially as the world’s population continues its inefficient and environmentally damaging methods of energy usage. People tend to focus on the political sides of climate change, however, the biggest problem the world faces in energy consumption is not transportation emissions but is how we go about out food systems and daily food choices. Evidence has surfaced about how daily food choices impact the climate severely. According to an assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the livestock sector of global greenhouse gases surpassed that of transportation.