Cowspiracy – Resources

Our fiction film THE CELLO, and its associated short, Sun-Crossed, promote action agendas to address climate change, democracy and equity versus white supremacy, and the lifestyles of the 1% versus the 99%. The films featured in this POW! round show how media can motivate action and also demonstrate how POW! [Power Our World] can amplify media impact.

Cowspiracy Trailer

A range of resources have been developed to accompany the film Cowspiracy:
Learning about Agriculture
Lesson plans for movies
Teaching resources
For Teachers

Cowspiracy is a brilliantly conceived film that tackles five huge topics with a single coherent focused message:

These five topics, with health directly dependent on diet and the environment, should be enough. But now there’s a 2020 reason to watch Cowspiracy again with evidence that diet is related to COVID-19.

COVID-19 – Cowspiracy in 2020
Scientists Say New Strain of Swine Flu Virus Is Spreading to Humans in China – New York
The meat we eat is a pandemic risk, too – Vox
Doctors Say There Is an ‘Urgent Need’ to Reduce Our Meat Consumption for Planetary and Human Health – Euronews
Continuous consumption, illegal trade of wildlife may cause more pandemics
What the Health Meal Planner 
Civil Eats on our Food System and the impact of private company investment in university  / institute research about agriculture resulting from the Bayh-Dole Act of 1982:

“…A major change to U.S. patent law, Bayh-Dole incentivized universities to partner with the private sector on research by allowing them to collect royalties for patents and other types of intellectual property they developed. The shift came at a time when public funds were diminishing.

Bayh-Dole, explained Clif’s Dillon, paved the way for agribusinesses to approach researchers and say, “Let’s identify corn genetics that can improve nutrient use efficiency, and let’s patent our new understanding of the genetics, and together we can collect royalties any time varieties with these genetics are used.”

Companies’ stepped-up funding for agricultural research at land-grant universities led to public institutions increasingly serving private interests at the expense of the public good, according to a 2012 report by nonprofit advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

The impact, said Rodale’s Martin, is “we’ve seen a lot of scientists get bullied into not publishing results that aren’t favorable to the funder or the industry.” Scientists have also been discouraged from conducting research on organics…”

Over the last 40 years the business model of universities has shifted to a dependence of foreign students who pay full tuition and IP from corporate partnerships.

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