'This Changes Everything' - the film

I'm so excited for this:

This Tree Created by Artist Sam Van Aken Grows 40 Different Kinds of Fruit

Article here

Genetic Modification: the flip side

That Sugar Film

I saw this film on Monday and it was incredible.

“Not even Daniel Day-Lewis could act fatty liver disease,” says Gameau, who received just that – and several other blows to his wellbeing – after indulging for 60 days in a Super Size Me-esque stunt to test the effect of sugar on his body.The twist is that Gameau didn’t splurge on sloppy nosh such as cheeseburgers, chips and sundaes – in other words food everybody knows is bad for you. Gameau consumed the typical Australian’s 40 teaspoons of sugar a day, maintained exercise, the same kilojoule intake of his regular diet and – the clincher – only ate foods perceived to be healthy. This includes cereal, smoothies, muesli bars and low-fat yoghurt. The kind of products at the heart of advertising campaigns built on extolling their supposed virtues, using faux science and deceptive packaging. “If I’d gone and consumed Mars bars and Cokes the whole time I think we all would know I’d have had ill effects. We get that,” he says. “Where people have been duped is around the lack of integrity and accountability in labelling. You see some of these products in the supermarket with a sunset on them. Or words like Mother Nature and a bee and a flower or something. And people believe it.”

 

Video: The Art of Making a Book

Amazing (hilarious) video: "The Daily Show takes on Monsanto"

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

A parody segment from The Daily Show. If the above video doesn't work, click here for the source and accompanying article.

"Monsanto tells us that their products are about the best thing to come along since sliced bread. For years they’ve been promising that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) would reducepesticide use, increase yields, reduce water consumption, and offer foods that are more tasty and more nutritious.
I wish they were right.
But in the 20 years since GMO crops first came on the market, studies have found that they have led to higher pesticide use, and no meaningful improvement in flavor, nutrition, yield or waterrequirements. Instead, what they’ve created are plants that are engineered to withstand massive dosing of toxic herbicides, and plants that function as living pesticide factories. Monsanto’s Bt. corn, for example, is actually registered with the EPA as a pesticide."

Some kind soul left this DVD on my desk last week. 

Grandin, who has autism, “is Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, and is one of the world’s leaders in the design of livestock handling facilities. She has designed livestock facilities throughout the United States and in Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. In North America, almost half of all cattle processing facilities include a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Her curved chute (race) systems are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many producers to reduce stress during handling.” - Grandin Livestock Handling Systems

Quotes from the film: 

Of course they’re gonna get slaughtered. You think we’d have cattle if people didn’t eat ‘em everyday? They’d just be funny-lookin’ animals in zoos. But we raise them for us. That means we owe them some respect. Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be. I would'nt want to have my guts ripped out by a lion, I’d much rather die in a slaughterhouse if it was done right.

They’ll be very calm. Nature is cruel but we don’t have to be; we owe them some respect. I touched the first cow that was being stunned. In a few seconds it was going to be just another piece of beef, but in that moment it was still an individual. It was calm… and then it was gone. I became aware of how precious life was. I thought about death and I felt close to God. I don’t want my thoughts to die with me. I want to have done something.

‘Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be’

 After watching the movie I also enjoyed listening to her Ted Talk about autism and different kinds of thinkers - visual, pattern, and verbal [click here].

You know, the slaughter plants, I’ve worked with them in the '80s; they were absolutely awful. I developed a really simple scoring system for slaughter plants where you just measure outcomes: How many cattle fell down? How many cattle got poked with the prodder? How many cattle are mooing their heads off? And it’s very, very simple. You directly observe a few simple things. It’s worked really well. I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff that makes real change in the real world. We need a lot more of that, and a lot less abstract stuff.

Story of Solutions

Found here
38 minutes in, she uses a phrase that really interests me ‘the romanticisation of agriculture’

Why is there this distinction between animals we see as ‘food’ and those we see as 'pets’? This is a question that baffles me all the time. Needless to say, I’m a vegetarian, and I’d no sooner eat bacon than the flesh of my own pet dog, so I really enjoyed this short film, played in the line-up of the most recent Show me the Shorts film series. There were lots of ‘gasp’ moments, everyone in the theatre was horrified at the prospect of being fed their own pet. 

Narrative film is a great way to portray these ideas. Creating empathy with a character’s situation gets the viewer more engaged than if these questions were presented without a story. I think it comes down to ‘showing, not telling.’ The audience isn’t told ‘it’s weird that we have these double standards towards animals, and that’s not OK’ but it’s definitely inferred, and different angles and arguments are explored by different characters.

I always find it funny at the end of film credits when it is stated ‘no animals were harmed in the making of this film.’ Really? Was the catering 100% vegan and ethically sourced? Was there no fur nor leather in the costumes or furniture? Was absolutely none of the make up from one of the many brands that test on animals? Doubt it.

Last night I went along to this film screening of ‘Hot Air’ (click here for the youtube trailer.) There were countless moments in this documentary when I had to hold my head in my hands, or found myself swearing out loud. Especially when one MP being interviewed said something along the lines of: 'Coal is not a renewable resource. It’s a bit like having money in the bank if you’re dying. So the best thing to do is to mine it, and use it, to benefit the economy while you can. In that way, you could almost say that coal is a renewable resource!’

The documentary follows the tactics employed by the government over the past few decades to deny, spread doubt, and delay any action whatsoever, regarding climate change. This in favour of expanding our coal industry - only marginally cheaper than other energy sources yet entirely unsustainable and environmentally destructive. The New Zealand government’s total inaction regarding climate change - and the 25% increase in our carbon emissions in the past couple of decades, the opening of more coal mines, nationwide deforestation for new dairy farms, and withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol - is absolutely shameful.

Jeanette Fitzsimmon’s talk afterwards was no doubt the highlight of the event. While the film finishes on an unresolved note, leaving the audience shocked and feeling as if the situation is hopeless, her common sense optimism restored my sense that change is possible. But as she puts it, change doesn’t come from the government. That is, parliament cannot - or will not - initiate change, as the documentary proved all too well. As she puts it, the government will be the very last to respond to climate change and they will only do so once the general public have made it loud and clear that that is what we want.

Basically what I got out of this event was the sense that it is my duty not only to make positive change on a personal level, but also to do as much as I can to contribute to the noise.

An interesting concept that Jeanette mentioned was that in traditional Maori culture, the standard of forward thinking was to ask: will this last for the next 7 generations? Whereas our government only thinks three years ahead…

Fascinated by the idea of turbulence, and this overlap between science, light, and art. A transcription can be read here.