Thanks to all for attending our first virtual screening of “The Invisible Hand” last month and for the insightful follow up conversation on individual action, the role of government in environmental activism, and rights of nature. This rounds out our Indigenous Land Management mini-series!

We’re proud to present our next mini-series, focused on plant-based eating. Our first installment in the series is “Eating Our Way To Extinction.” This movie is available for free on YouTube. We will follow the same format as our last event, where participants will watch the movie prior to our discussion. The discussion will be held through Zoom on Sunday, January 15, from 1:30pm to 3:00pm. *Note: we will NOT be watching the movie at 1:30pm January 15. This is reserved for our follow-up discussion!

Learn more about the film here: https://www.eating2extinction.com/

Watch “Eating Our Way To Extinction” here: https://www.eating2extinction.com/the-movie/

Eating Our Way to Extinction

1 hr 22 min feature documentary

Directed by: Ludo Brockway, Otto Brockway

Narrated by: Kate Winslet

Register for the discussion session now: https://www.cooldavis.org/civicrm/event/register/?reset=1&id=189

NEWS FLASH! We’ll start the discussion with a Q&A session with the film’s lead scientist!

We are thrilled to report that we will be joined before our usual discussion by Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop coming to us from Syndney, Austrailia (19 hours ahead). Gerard served as Principal Scientist with the Queensland Dept of Environmental Resources and Management Remote Sensing Centre.

Consider preparing some questions for Gerard for this Sunday! The Debunking the Myths page on the film website is a good place to look for ideas. Learn more about Gerard via a podcast from 2020, an interview with Healthification, a YouTube interview from 2013, and his ResearchGate page.

Learn more at Gerard World Preservation Foundation organization YouTube site.

We hope you can join us!

Your Climate Movie Circle Planning Team,

Natalie, Carson, Jess, and Leslie (and more members in the works!)

P.S. We’ve created a survey to hear about your feedback on the Climate Movie Circle Screening. Have a movie or climate-related topics to suggest? Or do you have a time preference? Please take our survey if you haven’t already!

More about Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop

Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop worked as a Principal Scientist with Queensland Government Natural Resources, using satellite data to monitor three decades of vegetation cover and broadscale deforestation. He left government in 2010 to co-author the Beyond Zero Emissions’ Land Use Plan, a plan to take Australia’s land use and agriculture emissions beyond zero, and works pro bono with NGO World Preservation Foundation, focusing on deforestation, land degradation and biodiversity loss, and is on the Zero Emissions Byron Land Use Advisory Panel and is a Director of Replant Byron. Recently he co-authored a book for the Eating Our Way To Extinction documentary, and has produced a series of explanatory videos on the climate impact of animal agriculture and co-authored a report on the environmental impact of Australian beef production.

Credentials: B. Surv (Hons 1), University of Queensland; former Principal Scientist with State Government Natural Resources; Co-Founder and Lead Scientist of World Preservation Foundation; Director of RePlant Byron; member Climate Healers; author of several journal papers and book chapters, co-author of Beyond Zero Emissions’ Land Use Plan, co-author of the book accompanying the documentary Eating Our Way To Extinction.

Synopsis and more about “Eating Our Way To Extinction”

“EATING OUR WAY TO EXTINCTION takes audiences on a cinematic journey around the world, from the depths of the Amazon rainforests to the Taiwanese Mountains, the Mongolian desert, the US Dust Bowl, the Norwegian Fjords and the Scottish coastlines, telling the story of our planet through shocking testimonials, poignant accounts from indigenous people most affected by our ever-changing planet, globally renowned figures and leading scientists. This powerful documentary sends a simple but impactful message by uncovering hard truths and addressing, on the big screen, the most pressing issue of our generation – ecological collapse.

Confronting and entertaining, this documentary allows audiences to question their everyday choices, industry leaders and governments. Featuring a wealth of world-renowned contributors, including Sir Richard Branson and Tony Robbins, it has a message of hope that will empower audiences.” – taken from https://www.eating2extinction.com/about/

The website for our next movie has a meal planner that assists users in creating healthier, more sustainable plant-based diets for themselves. The planner has an expansive set of questions to set up a plan and allows users to select meal sizes, their preferred time spent cooking, their level of comfort with cooking, any allergies they may have, what kitchen equipment they have available, and what type of measurements they want their recipes in. Try it yourself here: https://meals.eatingfortomorrow.com/

This page systematically debunks several myths about the topic:

Until recently, even among the climate science community, many had a dismissive attitude to methane’s climate impact. However, we know now that methane emissions alone (even ignoring carbon dioxide) will push the world into dangerous climate change, beyond 2°C warming [134].

But methane has a silver lining: it is the most effective means we have to moderate and slow global warming in coming decades, simply due to its short lifespan. Reducing livestock methane emissions is the most effective way to do this. Reducing animal product consumption by half will be enough to avert dangerous global warming [135136].

Waste is serious – up to a third of all food is wasted, causing greenhouse gases, water use, forest loss, land degradation, habitat loss for food that is never eaten.  Waste occurs on the farm, processing, distribution chains and in our kitchens. Thankfully, minimising waste is the focus of many government and industry campaigns, as well as retail chains and public awareness campaigns.

But if we are concerned about waste, then the most effective step we can take is to minimise the waste embodied in our food.  If we feed crops to animals, then eat those animals, we waste up to 97% of the food value. The most efficient meat for converting protein is chicken, but even here we waste 60% of the protein fed to the chicken. Eating plants, at the lowest level on the food chain, is the best way to prevent food waste.