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[birds chirping]

[chainsaw rumbling]

[insects chirping]

[wood crackling]

[crackling intensifies]

[loud crash]

[light suspenseful music]

But surely you must realize that this is their home.

These Indigenous tribes have been living on this land

for hundreds of years.

[soft dramatic music]

[Kate Winslet] Our Earth...

She is ever in flow and motion.

A dynamic symphony of forces all working together,

breathing life into the four corners of the world.

[thunder rumbling]

And for millennia, cultures the world over

have called her their mother.

[deep inhaling]

[gentle exhaling]

[deep inhaling]

[gentle exhaling]

[dramatic music intensifies]

[dramatic music continues]

[music stops abruptly]

[somber music]

[Mr. Brockway] We live on an incredibly beautiful planet.

A home that we will hopefully pass on to generations to come.

But as the years go by, it's becoming

increasingly hard to imagine

what kind of a world we're leaving behind us.

[thunder rumbling]

We've spent the last four years traveling around the world

filming the stark reality that people now face

from the threat of ecological collapse.

It's now become very clear to us

that there's one thing driving the destruction

of our ecosystems faster than anything else.

Let us show you how this very same thing

might just also be our salvation.

[gentle somber music]

[Dr. Kong] Climate and environmental scientists

warn that we are fast approaching

the point of no return

if we don't make a substantial course reversal.

[Prof. Wadhams] We'll see really serious catastrophic effects

in the next few years, certainly in the next decade or two.

The world will be completely different

from the way it is now.

[Kate Winslet] Since 1900, we have seen a dramatic increase

in worldwide weather related disasters.

There have now been four times more weather related disasters

in the last 50 years than in the previous 100.

[Mr. Rifkin] We began to work together to move

this issue onto the global center stage.

There was a lot of discussion about the contribution

from buildings and from industrial factories,

but I became aware during that same period of time

that there was another factor that was going undiscussed,

and that is the role of animal agriculture, which I could see was playing

some significant role around the planet.

But this was the elephant in the room no one wanted to talk about.

Whatever environmental issue you want to look at

from species loss to water pollution,

to water use, to climate change, animal agriculture

is one of the top causes.

[Dr. Kong] The critical, widespread negative impact

of animal agriculture on our planet is undeniable.

Severe global crises

from climate change

and environmental damage to species extinction,

hunger, poverty, disease and antibiotic resistance,

all of these have direct connections

to animal agriculture

and the massive inefficiency

of our current food production systems.

[Kate Winslet] A report published by WikiLeaks as far back as 2009,

exposed the conversations between Nestlé executives

and U.S. officials called "The Tour D'Horizon."

The Nestlé executives said that their own research had shown

that the world was set to run out of fresh water

within the next 30 years.

It stated that one of the greatest reasons

for our detour down this catastrophic path

is the global demand for meat products.

[Prof. Wadhams] If you look at the impact that food choice has on--

on global warming, it's very significant.

Eating meat is huge for global climate,

and that's something where personal choice is the determining factor.

So there's the only case I can think of

where individual human choice

would have a big effect, would be food.

We're now over the line.

And the idea that we're going to double meat production

between now and 2050,

this is just unsustainable.

This is going to have to give.

Our diet is taking us to an abyss.

[dramatic musical sting]

[Mr. De Schutter] A significant reason why livestock production

has been having such a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions

is because of the large surfaces

of forests that have been destroyed

in order to make room for pastures and for the growth

of soybean and maize for feedstock production.

[Kate Winslet] Our forests were once full of the most incredible life.

In more recent years, we began to grow an insatiable appetite

for meat and dairy, and as our demand for more meat grew,

we needed more and more land.

So we slashed and burned our way through the pristine forests,

destroying everything in our paths

to make way for the animals we desired to eat.

As these animals weren't allowed to roam free

as they naturally do in the wild,

their grazing areas soon became empty,

and so, of course, we needed to feed them,

so again, we slashed and burned our way

through more and more forests,

sowed the ground with genetically enhanced corn and soya,

and then dowsed it in pesticides,

herbicides and synthetic chemical fertilizer.

[dramatic music]

Animal agriculture has literally changed the face of our planet.

The green land is used for human crops.

A great area that spans the globe.

And yet the land we use for animal agriculture,

shown in red, now occupies vast amounts of our Earth's land,

a far greater area than that used for human crops.

Almost all the Earth's surface has-- now bears the mark

of some kind of human impact,

and most of that is livestock production.

Agriculture has transformed the planet like nothing else.

To produce milk, we farm an area about the size of Brazil.

To produce beef, we farm an area about the size of Canada,

the United States, the whole of Central America,

Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador combined.

To produce eggs, we farm an area the size of Sweden.

To produce aquaculture feed, an area about the size of the UK.

A plant-based diet would reduce the amount of land required

to produce our food by 3.1 billion hectares.

That's an area the size of the entire African continent.

[Kate Winslet] The Amazon is the world's largest tropical rainforest.

This ancient and richly biodiverse world

is slowly being replaced.

It is often assumed that much of the soy

being planted in Brazil is for human consumption.

In fact, less than six percent of the soy

grown across the globe is fed to humans.

The vast majority is grown to create

animal feed for livestock.

The soy is exported all around the world

and fed to the billions of chickens, farmed fish,

pigs and cows that we eat each day.

The forests are not only home to millions

of species of wildlife and plants,

but are also great regulators of our planet's atmosphere.

Day by day, they slowly breathe in the carbon dioxide

whilst producing billions of tons of fresh oxygen

for our air.

[dramatic music continues]

Each year, an estimated 18 million

acres of forest are lost,

which is roughly the size of the country of Panama.

It is thought that about half of the Earth's

mature tropical forests have now been destroyed,

and some scientists have predicted

that unless significant measures are taken on a worldwide basis,

by 2030, only ten percent of the forests will remain.

[somber piano music]

[birds and insects chirping]

[Sir Branson] One of the most precious things we have in the world is our rainforests.

The rainforests are literally being chewed away,

um, by farmers who know they can make money

by cutting another acre, and then another acre,

and then another acre for meat.

[somber piano music continues]

[Kate Winslet] Each year, hundreds of tribespeople,

indigenous to the Amazon rainforest,

have their villages burned to the ground.

They have been forcibly removed from their land,

with many of them murdered by the agribusiness paramilitary

who seek to turn their jungle home

into farmland for growing soy for livestock feed.

[dramatic music]

[gunshot]

[woman cries]

[Kate Winslet] One of the worst affected tribes is the Guarani Kaiowá

in Mato Grosso do Sul.

[somber music]

[dramatic music]

[loud whirring]

[inhabitants clamoring]

[music fades]

So there was actually a report that came out in 2018,

and they found that the world's top five livestock corporations

now release more annual greenhouse gas emissions

than ExxonMobil, Shell and BP.

It is crazy when you think about it

because the EU is spending £24 billion

of taxpayers' money on livestock farming each year,

and this is at a time when we are facing

an ecological collapse, and we drastically need to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions.

So it's no surprise that people are asking

a lot of questions now about the fact that there seem to be

some serious conflicts of interest going on here.

There's some very heavy lobbying going on of government,

and I think that happens throughout the world,

and it's just a historic thing

that needs to be, I think, rebalanced.

[light dramatic music]

[car beeping]

Today, democracy does not always function

as well as it should because of the huge influence

that agribusiness corporations, and livestock producers

in particular, exercise on decision-making.

[reporter] The former director of the United Nations Food

and Agriculture Organization, Dr. Samuel Jutzi,

warned as far back as 2010,

that interventions by agribusiness lobbyists

were blocking reforms that would offer better standards

for human health and preserving the environment.

Big animal agribusiness corporations'

and food producers' influence over political decisions

about the regulation of their industry, has long been a concern

for campaigners, who see the narrow interests

of the industry taking widespread control.

[Mr. De Schutter] If we have any doubt about how powerful this influence is,

we can recall that, for example,

when the Advisory Committee on Dietary Guidelines in the US

made recommendations to the US government

as to how dietary guidelines should be shaped,

they were blocked by this very powerful lobby of agribusiness interests.

[Kate Winslet] In 2013, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

released a landmark report called

Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock.

The report states that livestock farming

is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions

than all global transportation combined.

[dramatic music]

A growing number of scientists

believe that the impact of animal agriculture is,

in fact, even worse than stated in the FAO report.

There are close ties between the research organizations

and governments, and government policy and industry.

It's very pervasive because livestock industries

depend on government policies that support them.

[Mr. De Schutter] The FAO report was prepared within the FAO

by specialists of agriculture and livestock production,

not by specialists of the environmental issues

associated with agricultural production.

I believe that the more serious concern, of course,

is that the International Meat Association

was involved in preparing the report,

which does raise the question of the independence

with which the study was prepared.

[Mr. Wedderburn-Bisshop] Government policy in that regard

is not for the benefit of the land,

it's for the benefit of the industry.

[Kate Winslet] In their report, the FAO partnered up

with member countries, non-governmental organizations

and many other organizations, including

the European Feed Manufacturers Federation,

the International Dairy Federation,

the International Meat Secretariat,

the International Egg Commission,

and the International Poultry Council.

In an industry worth over a trillion dollars,

are these not the very institutions

that have the most to lose from a damaging

scientific report against livestock farming?

[gentle music]

[Kate Winslet] There are few people that know more

about the ocean than Dr. Sylvia Earle.

Dr. Earle was the first woman to become chief scientist

of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

and held the record for spending more time

walking along the sea floor at depth, untethered,

than any living person.

[Dr. Earle] When I was a child,

the idea of a dead zone in the ocean was--

was not even in our vocabulary,

but in the 20th century,

as agriculture began to greatly expand,

the areas around the coast began to show signs of wear and tear.

The first, most notorious...

spotlight area I think was off the Gulf of Mexico.

And it has simply grown over the years, an annual phenomenon.

It is coincident with the application

of massive amounts of fertilizer.

[Kate Winslet] The millions of square miles, given over to growing

feed for the animals we eat,

are heavily sprayed with nitrogen fertilizers.

The nitrogen runs off the fields working its way down rivers,

and eventually into our oceans.

The nitrogen-rich water stimulates massive overgrowth of algae,

resulting in algal blooms so large,

they can be seen from space.

The algae starve the water of oxygen,

leading to the death of the marine life around it.

Since the demand for meat has grown,

these low oxygen dead zones

have been steadily growing and growing.

[ominous music]

There are hundreds of dead zones

that have developed all around the coastlines

of the world.

And...

Okay, people say, "That's-- that's too bad for the fish,

so sorry, fish." But...

we need to understand that what we do to the ocean,

we're doing to ourselves.

[low rumble]

[whale calling]

[gentle music]

I want others to see it and to see for themselves.

This is all we've got, this little blue miracle.

[whale calling]

[ethereal music]

[eerie music]

[Kate Winslet] It is believed by some

that switching from eating meat to fish

will have a beneficial effect on our planet.

This simply could not be further from the truth.

If the ocean dies,

then we humans would probably die with it,

as every other breath of air we take

has been created by our ocean.

[deep exhaling]

As reported in the leading science journal, Nature,

we have lost nearly 90 percent of all large fish

in the ocean since the '50s.

One of the most in-depth studies ever carried out

investigating fish stocks,

also in the journal, Nature,

stated that at the current rate of fishing,

the world's fisheries are predicted to collapse

in less than 30 years.

According to IPBES, the intergovernmental body

which assesses the state of our biodiversity,

the leading cause of marine life extinction is fishing.

Our taste for fish is literally draining our oceans of life.

[light dramatic music]

[somber piano music]

[whale calling]

Today, we have agreed on fishing opportunities

for European fishermen worth more than five billion euros

and benefiting more than 50,000 fishermen.

The catches agreed today will continue to make

the European fishing industry highly profitable also in 2019.

[somber music continues]

[Kate Winslet] Norway, a beautiful country with breathtaking landscapes.

It is also a place that harbors some darker secrets.

Norway is one of the world's largest

exporters of farmed fish.

An industry that is worth billions of euros

to the country's economy.

As much of the wild ocean large fish populations

collapsed to near extinction,

fishermen are turning to aquaculture

as a way of growing fish in a controlled environment.

Norway produces more farmed salmon and cod

than any other country in the world.

About 70 percent of the fish we eat today

now comes from artificial fish farms.

As thousands of fish are kept close together

in very small sea cages, disease and lice spread easily

and have become a massive problem for the industry.

As a result, pesticides, disinfectants

and antibiotics are used extensively

to keep the fish alive long enough to go to market.

In order to rid the fish of lice,

special pumping boats are used,

which suck the fish up in a giant water vacuum.

The fish are then pumped through the system,

and as they flow through, they are either heated

to a high temperature or bathed in a chemical solution

which removes most of the lice

before being pumped back into the cage.

The fish are bathed in chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide

and azamethiphos, to kill the parasites and diseases,

and given feed with chemicals such as teflubenzuron,

emamectin and diflubenzuron,

which, by their very nature, are toxic.

Researchers have found that traces of chemicals

can end up in the fish, and ultimately on our plates.

This is much the same for farmed fish all around the world.

Taryn Bishop, an environmental activist,

is meeting with the Green Warriors,

a conservation organization based in Bergen,

on the west coast of Norway.

The Green Warriors have been investigating the devastating practices

of fish farming on the local ecosystem for many years,

and are taking Taryn to see the darker side

of the farms that lies beneath the surface.

A specially built submersible

has enabled them to see the seabed below the cages.

[light dramatic music]

[Kate Winslet] All along the ocean floor lies a thick layer of sludge

made up of fish waste, bacteria and uneaten feed.

The sludge is full of the pesticides added to the feed,

and new research has shown that the massive amounts of pesticide

being added around the world to the marine ecosystem

in fish farms is having a devastating effect

on the natural ocean biodiversity.

The sludge also releases large amounts

of climate warming methane.

Researchers at Oxford University

have found that some types of aquaculture

are now releasing more methane than beef production.

Liv Holmefjord is the head

of the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries.

Whilst in Norway, we were given information

that not only is she in charge of regulating

the country's fish farm industry,

but also owns shares in one of Norway's

largest fish farm companies.

Many conservation groups feel this is a great conflict

of interests.

Holmefjord has agreed to meet Taryn

to answer questions about the state of Norway's fish farms.

Well, fish farming is quite a new industry in Norway.

It started back in the 1960s,

so it's some local entrepreneurs starting with hobby,

and it's grown until it's a billion euro industry today.

And, um, seafood is the second largest export

industry in Norway, and fish farming

accounts for two third of the export value of seafood.

So, recently, we found out that you also have shares

in one of the largest fish farm companies in Norway.

Do you not feel that that's a conflict of interest?

Uh, of course, there could be a con-- uh, in--

conflict of interest.

Uh, but this is a fact that's been known

since before I got this position,

and I've been open about it. I have--

do not-- I'm not involved

in the business from day-to-day

or at any-- so it's-- an if this--

Um, we have-- um, I have--

Sorry, I have to-- you have to start over again.

[speaking in Norwegian]

[man mutters]

So all the decisions that I made

will either be for the whole industry,

not specially for this fish farm,

or it's only an advice to the politicians, and the politicians

are setting the limits and the actual regulations.

So if there's an actual case,

uh, handling, regarding this company,

then I will step aside.

[ominous music]

[water splashing]

[birds chirping]

Salmon is marketed as healthy.

It's also marketed in a very devious way,

deceptive way that they think it's a wild product,

but it's a fake product.

It's a fatty product, it's contaminated.

It's marketed as healthy, but it-- but it's not.

So salmon, if you see salmon, alarm bells should start ringing.

It's pretty grim when you dive down to the bottom of the cages

because, you know, we always see the bottom full of dead fish.

And it's basically because many of these fish are

so disease-, so parasite-ridden and laden with chemicals

that they become sick, and they live out their sad short lives,

basically looking like zombies.

[dramatic music]

You know, you don't see this when you go

to the restaurant or the supermarket,

but this is basically what a lot of the fish actually look like

before it ends up on our plates.

So, tonight Don wanted to show us

how much of the farm fish actually dies.

Because of the very unnatural

and unsanitary ways that they are kept,

and they have rows of very large metal containers

that they are constantly filling up with the dead fish.

And I have to say that the smell as we get closer

is actually pretty disgusting.

[dramatic music]

[Mr. Staniford] So this is the sordid side

of salmon farming in Scotland.

This is the-- the dirty secrets

the industry don't want you to see.

This is disease-ridden

farmed salmon, it's 15 to 20 percent fat.

That's where the contaminants, the cancer-causing contaminants,

PCBs, dioxins, and the artificial colorings are.

So this is something to be avoided at all costs.

[dramatic music continues]

This is the salmon farm just here.

We got freedom of information...

data from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency

showing the use of over 50 tons of formaldehyde,

not just at this site, but other sites across Scotland.

It's formaldehyde: "May cause cancer,

suspected of causing genetic defects,

toxic if swallowed,

may cause respiratory irritation,

causes damage to organs. Do not breathe."

[mud sloshing]

[ominous music]

One of the fish farm workers told us that the workers,

um, come down to the farm, um, early in the morning,

spraying the chemicals into the fish cages.

[light dramatic music]

[Kate Winslet] As the ocean becomes a dumping ground of seven billion people

and farms saturate their fish with chemical feed,

eating fish has never been so toxic.

[Dr. Greger] You know, our oceans have become humanity's sewers.

Everything eventually flows into the sea,

so if you had a, you know, time machine

that could go back before the industrial revolution,

it might-- it's a different story, but now,

the highest levels are many of these persistent

organic pollutants. We're talking about,

you know, DDT, and PCBs and dioxins.

The highest levels in our food supply

are found in the aquatic food chain.

Fish are not the safest choice anymore.

-So, Tony it's great to see you. -Great to see you as well.

-Thanks for coming. -Not at all, thank you.

A pleasure being here.

So I wanted to ask you

if you could share with us

what is-- what exactly it was

you began to feel when you realized

something was going wrong?

I was exhausted more than usual,

and then I was losing short-term memory,

and that scared the hell out of me. And then I tore

my rotator cuffs in a really intense snowboarding accident.

And the doctor said, "Do you want to do your metals test?"

And I said, "Ah, I got my amalgams out 25 years ago."

He goes, "There's so many metals in the environment, you should do it."

So I did. I get a phone call a week later,

and I said to my assistant, "Just have them send the report."

And he said, "No, it's an emergency. He has to speak to you."

And it was like, no one wants to hear that.

And so I called him up and he said, "Tony,

I showed your blood tests.

You have extreme mercury poisoning,

on a zero to five scale," which is what they measure,

"five being toxic, you're 123."

The doctor said, "How long has this man been in the hospital?"

And I just got off stage.

So I-- I said, "I can't understand this,"

so I went out and they thought, you know,

maybe someone was trying to poison me because the number was so high.

And I was very disciplined. I was a vegan for 12 years

and then I just went salad, fish, salad, fish. And they brought

the medical group out here and they looked at it,

and I found this man named Dr. Shade

who's the only guy that has an ideation process

where he could see where the mercury came from, and it was fish.

It's been three years, um, and I had some severe moments.

It burned a hole in my esophagus and I literally collapsed.

I lost a third of my blood supply.

I could have died. I lost half of my hemoglobin.

-People begin to lose their hair. -Yes.

Their memory. They lose their memories.

-As you were doing. As you-- as you noticed. -Yes, yes.

But they can also have headaches.

They can complain of fatigue,

and they can also have depression.

What we're seeing now is with the toxic environmental exposure,

and especially with the mercury-- methylmercury

in fish, is that everyone has got to be careful

because their-- the levels are going up.

Udo, tell me, because your specialty is in this,

how do you get the fish oils that we all need

for the brain and for the body

if we can't have fish? What do you suggest?

Well, we used to get them from fish oils.

-Yes. -And-- But there--

We can actually get them from vegetables.

Flax is the richest source of omega-3

that we-- everybody thinks should come from fish oil.

If you get enough of that as starting material,

your body will make what the fish oils make, and it'll be clean.

[Dr. Newman] Many people take fish oils

or have fish for the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids,

and you have to ask yourself the question,

"But where do the fish get them from?"

And it turns out they get them from the algae in the ocean.

They get them from plant food. So if you want the purest form

of the long-chain ready-made omega-3 fatty acids,

the best way of doing that is simply to take

an algae supplement, because then you've got the purest form of it

and you don't have the extra risks

of having the toxins and the heavy metals

and the saturated fat and the cholesterol

that you would get from eating a fish.

[Kate Winslet] A peer-reviewed study

from researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography

at UC San Diego,

undertook one of the largest studies

of fish pollutants in the world.

The scientists found toxic contaminants in fish

right across the planet's oceans.

Nobody would go to the nearest body of water

and put in like a cup and drink the water.

Um, you're basically getting the concentrated toxins

if we're eating fish.

[Kate Winslet] Our oceans have also become filled

with plastic.

As the oceans are so large,

it is a challenge for any scientist to accurately understand

where most of this plastic is coming from.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,

covering an area of about 1.6 million square kilometers,

may provide a unique opportunity to better understand

the growing problem of microplastics in the sea.

A team of scientists from the organization Ocean Cleanup

have been studying the Patch for some time

and were surprised when they discovered

that the vast majority of plastic in the Patch

is not from old drinking straws or used plastic water bottles,

but from thousands of tons of discarded fishing gear

broken down by the sea into trillions of pieces of microplastic.

A study, recently published in the journal, Nature,

found that about 80 percent of the plastic in the Pacific

is made up of discarded fishing gear.

Many scientists agree that one of the greatest things

we as individuals can do to solve this problem of a plastic ocean

is to move away from eating fish

and switch to a plant-based diet.

At least half of the plastic in the sea today

comes from discarded or lost fishing gear.

Because all those nets, all those lines, all that stuff,

it's just become a plasticized ocean,

but we have a chance.

We have a chance right now to change our eating habits.

[light dramatic music]

[Prof. Lindeque] There's an estimate that there's over five trillion

tons of plastic currently floating in the ocean.

It's absolutely everywhere.

Everywhere we looked, we found microplastics,

whether it's at the polar regions, in remote islands.

Also, if we're looking on the surface or the seabed

and everywhere in between, we find microplastics.

We've also found microplastics

in just about every animal group that we've looked in.

We've been sampling for microplastics for quite a while now,

and we found that there's 27 times more bits of plastic

than there are fish larvae.

[Kate Winslet] Microplankton are found

throughout the oceans.

They are filter feeders.

When the researchers add microplastics

into the plankton's environment, they consistently observe them

ingesting the plastic particles.

Unaware that the tiny particles are made up of toxic chemicals,

the plankton consume them indiscriminately.

The researchers observe how the chemicals accumulate

within the organs of these small marine creatures.

The toxic plankton are then eaten by larger fish,

and researchers have found that much of the fish

that we are eating today has bioaccumulated

these chemicals within their flesh.

[mellow music]

[Kate Winslet] A study by the University of Plymouth

found that over a third of all the fish tested

contained microplastics.

As we eat these contaminated fish,

we ingest the same toxic chemicals into our bodies,

and recent research suggests similar toxic accumulation in humans.

[suspenseful music]

[Mr. Rifkin] Our scientists tell us we're now

in the sixth extinction event

of life on this Earth.

It doesn't even make the headlines.

No one even knows about it.

[soft exotic music]

[gentle music]

[somber piano music]

[bird hooting]

[bird chirping]

[distant hooting]

[somber piano music continues]

[music fades]

[Mr. Rifkin] We've had five mass extinction events

on this planet in 450 million years.

Let me be clear on this, the last time we had

an extinction event of this magnitude,

was 65 million years ago.

It's incredibly sad to realize just how-- how many species, um,

both in the oceans and on land that we're losing at the moment,

um, and it's up to all of us to make sure,

that, um, this doesn't happen in the future.

[Mr. Poore] Today, over 26,000 species

are currently threatened with extinction,

and the most important driver of that

is our use of land for agriculture.

Over time, um, livestock have been a major,

major driver of biodiversity loss.

[Mr. Wedderburn-Bisshop] Some have predicted that by 2045,

the species loss will be so great that we won't recover.

The Earth will suffer ecological collapse.

And the biggest thing you and I can do...

is change our diet.

[Kate Winslet] Some scientists have begun to call this current crisis

a "biological annihilation."

[soft somber music]

According to the journal, Science of the Total Environment

from Florida International University,

livestock farming is the leading cause of biodiversity loss.

According to a study published in the journal Science,

if the entire world were to switch

to an exclusively plant-based diet,

we would free up over 75 percent

of the world's arable land,

and many of the forests, previously cut down

for livestock farming, could be restored.

There are now many great initiatives

around the world doing just that.

Ecosia, an online search engine similar to Google,

is one such initiative that uses the revenue made

from advertising to pay local communities to replant trees.

One of Ecosia's main foresters is Mauricio,

who has been working hard to replant the rainforest in Brazil.

[uplifting music]

[Kate Winslet] Trees breathe life into our world.

When we plant a tree, we sow the very seeds

of our future on this planet.

[somber music]

The most recent in-depth study

into the environmental impact of what we eat,

was a peer-reviewed journal by an international team of researchers.

This landmark study, headed by Dr. Marco Springmann

of Oxford University in England,

found that in order to have any chance of keeping

temperatures below the dangerous two-degrees-Celsius threshold

set out in the Paris Climate Agreement,

in high-income countries we need to drastically reduce

our consumption of meat by around 80 percent.

Policymakers have been

very, very reluctant to address the livestock issue.

It's entirely out of keeping with the urgency

of the crisis that we're facing.

[indistinct]

Hi, Otto Brockway for Broxstar Films.

Um, this is a question for Commissioner Hogan.

The scientists at Oxford University have been very clear

that livestock farming

has a far greater impact than plant-based farming.

With this in mind, would it not be common sense to reduce

the billions in subsidy payments to livestock farming

in Europe and offer them to plant-based farming instead

as an incentive to a much more sustainable food system?

We have made our proposals based on protecting the farmers,

because they are, unlike you and I,

they're out in all sorts of weathers and all sorts

of market risks, and you and I may not know

anything about that because this is their lives.

They're producing high-quality food for us all

so that we can have this particular

good-quality products available to us at all times.

Sometimes under local conditions like organic,

more times it's conventional farming.

So we provide financial support at the moment for that.

And it's a public good that's not always recognized,

but the movement of our policies is in the direction of our farmers

being centrally involved in providing more public goods.

And if you want to do anything in life, you have to pay people.

Sometimes I understand that there's a moral obligation

and there's people of principle, but most of the time,

99 percent of the time, they have to get paid.

So as professionals we're expecting to provide

good-quality food and do more on public goods.

We pay our farmers. This is a decision

that we make at a political level.

[Mr. Rifkin] Livestock emit methane and nitrous oxide.

Now most people, when they think of climate change

they think of CO2, carbon dioxide,

which is a very potent global warming gas.

But methane is 25 times more potent

per molecule when it's released than CO2.

And nitrous oxide is 298 times more potent

per molecule than CO2.

These are very powerful global warming gases.

[Mr. Brockway] So today we have a very special camera

called a hyperspectral imaging camera,

and it basically enables us to be able to see

gases that would be otherwise invisible to the naked eye.

And today we're looking at methane gas.

Methane is a gas that is being produced by cows when they belch.

[Kate Winslet] Methane, together with the other gases

it produces in the atmosphere,

has caused a third of global warming since 1750.

Livestock are the largest source of methane that we can control.

Steep cuts in methane emissions can slow global warming

by 15 to 25 years, making it the most effective means

we have to slow warming in the critical years ahead.

-Whoa, look at that. -Wow.

[ominous music]

[both] Wow.

[Kate Winslet] To demonstrate the different heating potentials

of climate gases, we can look to an experiment

known as the "infrared absorption experiment."

Here we see four Earth-shaped ice statues,

each one in its own airtight chamber.

The chambers represent the atmosphere

surrounding the planet.

Each has an infrared heater placed above it,

set at identical temperatures,

and each one is then filled with a different gas.

[gas hissing]

The first chamber is filled with normal air

that we breathe from day to day.

The second chamber is filled with carbon dioxide,

a well-known climate warming gas.

The third chamber is filled with methane,

a gas associated with animal agriculture,

and the fourth chamber is filled with nitrous oxide,

also a gas associated with animal agriculture.

Over time, we begin to see the ice statue in the carbon dioxide chamber

slightly melting, compared with the normal air.

But in the same short time,

the statues in the methane and nitrous oxide chambers

begin to melt rapidly

as the temperature inside rises considerably higher

than both the normal air, and also the carbon dioxide.

16 hours later, the results are stark.

We can clearly see that the methane and nitrous oxide,

the two main gas byproducts of animal agriculture,

are potent climate warming gases.

[somber music]

Of the estimated 70 billion land animals

reared for human consumption each year around the world,

nearly 90 percent are chickens.

An emerging problem is that chicken consumption

is now on the rise.

Whilst chicken has a lower environmental impact than red meat,

over 90 percent of chicken globally

is now intensively farmed,

and this is having devastating effects on our planet.

If we compare the equivalent protein calories

for meat and plant-based proteins, such as chickpeas,

chicken does less harm to the environment

than commonly consumed red meats.

And yet, still causes 40 times more climate-related warming

per calorie of protein than chickpeas,

and uses 50 times the amount of water.

We know that if we would shift from, um, ruminant meats

to other meats, then we probably would reduce

our footprint just from-- from that particular product

by about a factor of ten, which is quite a bit.

But if you compare that

with how much you would reduce your footprint

if you went to plant-based products,

that is about a factor of 100,

and that's the reason why shifting to more--

towards more plant-based diets has such a big impact,

because we're really talking about different scales here.

[Kate Winslet] Organic meat has been claimed to have

less environmental and climate impact.

However, a study carried out by researchers at Oxford University,

found that, in fact, organic or conventionally produced meat

has little significant difference in greenhouse emissions.

So in our data, we didn't find...

big differences between organic and conventional

across multiple indicators.

What we did find is that no matter

how you produce animal products, even the lowest impact forms of production

still create higher emissions and use more land

than typical vegetable proteins.

So that's saying something really important, that's saying

that even if you go into the shops and try and purchase

sustainable meat or dairy, it's always going to be better

to purchase vegetable proteins instead.

[Kate Winslet] Each year the US Government gives around $20 million

to subsidize fruit and vegetable farming,

but meat and dairy farming get a massive $38 billion

from the government.

It is now estimated that the annual cost

to the US taxpayer of diseases related to meat and dairy consumption

are now around $314 billion.

[light dramatic music]

And when you cram, tens of thousands

of animals in these crammed, filthy, unhygienic conditions,

basically live atop their feces, it's just like a breeding ground.

Animal-to-human diseases that arise

are because of the way we're now treating animals.

Whether it's these live animal markets in East Asia,

whether it's the bushmeat trade,

the concern is that with enough spins at genetic roulette

on these swine factory farms, these chicken factory farms,

we're going to end up with one of these viruses

that's not only deadly to chickens, but can jump

and transmit human to human and cause the next human pandemic.

The risk of large-scale factory farming increases the risk

that we-- or the likelihood that we might have a pandemic,

particularly, of influenza in the future.

This pandemic has been very severe,

but this is not necessarily the big one.

[Kate Winslet] Swine flu, which killed over half a million people

is believed to have originated in pig farming.

AIDS and the Ebola virus are believed to have come

from eating wild animals, while MERS from camels,

and also camels' milk and meat.

SARS is thought to have spread from live animal wet markets

as was the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Bird flu is believed to have come from chicken farms

and also live animal wet markets.

And the measles virus is thought to have originated from farm cows.

[Dr. Greatorex] People know now what a global pandemic feels like,

and they've seen the effects. They will be feeling the effects

for many years to come, and this is a chance,

I think, an opportunity to point out

that this particular route of infection

is a-- is a very concerning one.

[Kate Winslet] The World Health Organization has announced

that the post-antibiotic era is near.

A time where a simple scrape on the arm could become fatal.

Our miracle lifesaving antibiotics are being rendered useless

due to overuse, not because of overuse by humans,

but because we give them each day to billions of farm animals.

[dramatic music]

[Mr. Bayley] So having been a butcher for six years,

one thing I know is that if people knew what happened

in the production of their food, they wouldn't eat meat.

So one of the things that we would hit every day was

pus nodules, tumors, cysts.

It was something that we would hit on a daily basis.

Having worked in a supermarket chain,

I was-- I saw this firsthand every single day.

So here's one that's running along the shoulder blade.

[both] Oh!

-Yeah. -That is what I remember in the butchery,

it comes out like thick toothpaste.

I remember that every single day.

-That's interesting to hear you had that experience... -Yeah.

...all the way over there because in the UK it's exactly the same.

-Yeah. -We would see that on a daily basis.

But those people who say, "It's-- it's not my butcher who does this."

-No. -They need to open their eyes,

because if their butcher is being honest with them, we know.

-Yeah. -We both know, we were in,

-and any honest butcher is going to admit it. -Yeah.

They're not going to want to tell the public because it's going to affect

-their business, but it is a fact. -Yeah.

And me working in multiple butcheries,

I saw these common trends across the board,

so I know that it wasn't just isolated to the one

that I was working in, it was across the board for me.

People need to reconnect with what they're eating

-and the whole process that we were... -Yeah.

...we're talking about here of how that food gets to them.

Um, it's hidden from them, and it's hidden for a reason,

because if they saw it, it would most definitely make them

want to think harder about what they're eating.

[thunder rumbling]

[water rushing]

[Kate Winslet] As our oceans and atmosphere begin to warm,

the water cycles of the planet are beginning to change.

[ominous music]

[Mr. Rifkin] Climate change changes the water cycles of the planet.

The heat that's being generated

is forcing the precipitation into the clouds,

so we're getting more concentrated precipitation in our clouds,

and more dramatic, extreme,

and unpredictable water events all over the world.

[Kate Winslet] In the northern region of the remote Pacific island of Taiwan,

the Atayal people live high in the mountains.

Taiwan is no stranger to extreme weather,

but in recent years the strength and frequency

of the typhoons have increased.

This has had a devastating effect

on the Atayal people and their way of life.

[dramatic music]

[water rushing]

[thunder rumbling]

[water splattering]

[car crashing]

[crowd yelling indistinctly]

[Kate Winslet] Whilst much of the world has been experiencing

increasing levels of extreme flooding,

in many places, the opposite is happening.

Much of the world is increasingly entering

into extreme drought, destroying thousands of tons of crop,

as millions of farmers struggle to find

enough water for their fields.

[Mr. Michael] I'm definitely worried about the future of our farm.

I think we're seeing, you know, much more, uh--

many more swings in climate than we've seen in the past,

but we want to use all the land that we have to grow food,

but we haven't been able to just because of the shortages of water.

It will have an impact on food supply and prices

and availability, and so estimates now are

between 500,000 to over 1,000,000 acres of farmland

that will come out of production in California.

[light dramatic music]

[Kate Winslet] Almeria, in the south of Spain,

is home to 31,000 hectares of indoor vegetable farms.

Almeria produces half of Europe's fresh fruit

and vegetables, an essential component

in the supply of the continent's food system.

Worryingly, Spain has been in the grip of a 20-year drought,

a drought that climate experts suggest

is closely linked to climate change.

[translation] In terms of water, the truth is that the drought

in Spain has become a complete catastrophe.

Our harvests are decreasing in massive quantities.

Last year, in the area we are now,

there was almost no harvest.

People don't realize the food system is collapsing.

[dramatic music continues]

[Kate Winslet] As a result of this shift in the global climate system,

the drought across Africa has deepened.

Rivers and lakes that supply hundreds of millions

with fresh drinking water are beginning to run dry.

As new conflicts break out over these dwindling resources,

we are witnessing the beginning of a mass exodus of people

moving north, desperate to survive.

These climate refugees are willing to risk everything

to get themselves and their families to what they see

as the safe shores of Europe.

In response to this modern day mass migration,

Spain has built a massive wall

that runs along its southernmost border in Melilla.

Thousands of refugees are beginning to swarm

the border fences, overwhelming the Spanish police.

Amid predictions that this migratory pattern

is set to increase, it seems increasingly clear

that our world is poorly prepared to cope.

[music fades]

[wind blowing]

[hoofs thudding]

[somber spiritual music]

[Kate Winslet] As the Gobi Desert in Mongolia

begins to spread deeper and deeper

into the country, like a beast consuming all life in its path,

many of the lakes that support both the people

and the wildlife have now dried up.

If the lakes continue to disappear,

then the people will be forced away from their home

and into distant and strange lands.

[liquid splattering]

[gentle spiritual music]

A lot of people talk about how much fresh water

we use for hydrofracking.

700 billion gallons globally is wasted on fracking.

So, 700 billion gallons. Sounds like a lot,

but animal agriculture,

the production of animals that we use for meat around the globe

uses 70 trillion gallons of fresh water a year.

Hundreds of thousands of times

as much as fracking.

And we give the cows and the chickens the good stuff, right?

They don't get the Flint, Michigan lead-tainted,

condoms-floating-in-it water.

They get the top shelf stuff,

because we don't want to screw up our sausage links.

And I know what some of you are thinking right now.

You're thinking, "Oh, here's the part...

[with high-pitched voice] 'I'm a vegetarian and pigs

are people too, meh!'"

But no, let's ignore how the animals are treated

in our factory torture farming.

Let's pretend they're treated amazing, for just a minute.

It's like a celebrity backstage at the Oscars,

they're just being fawned over

and they get swag bags with free Apple watches...

Point is, you should still be upset about this

because animal agriculture is killing us,

and corporate media is fantastically pathetic on this topic.

They never mention meat production.

They never mention that a Quarter Pounder

takes 660 gallons of fresh water to create.

That's the-- that's the equivalent of showering

for two months.

So, one, usually underestimated

impact of livestock production

is the huge amount of fresh water required

for that production to be maintained and to be increased.

The problem is that in many places, water is being used

much faster than the natural renewal rates.

Overall, in the world, 1.8 billion people

are living in areas with severe water scarcity.

The livestock sector is the single biggest water user in the world.

1/3 of the water use in the world is being used

for producing animal products, meat and dairy,

and it's not because those animals drink so much,

it's really because there's a lot of water required

to make the feed for the animals.

If we want enough fresh water for future generations,

water alone dictates that we must change our diet,

away from meat and dairy.

[Kate Winslet] All over the world we can see evidence of a global shift

towards animal-free foods that is enough to give us some hope.

In 2021, a record 580,000 people signed up

to the UK's Veganuary campaign, and it's estimated

that there are now over four million people

identifying as vegan across the United Kingdom.

In Canada, it's estimated that ten percent of the population

are now either vegan or vegetarian,

and in the US, over 50 percent of chefs

have added vegan items to their menus,

with a 600 percent increase

in the vegan lifestyle in the last three years.

[onion slicing]

[playful music]

[oil sizzling]

[Mr. Brockway] A few years ago, it was quite a challenge

to get hold of good vegan food, but today we're pretty much spoiled

for choice, and there are vegan options everywhere.

-Mm. -Yeah, thanks.

It tastes like a normal hot dog, is it a normal hot dog?

Like as in like-- or is this like plant-based or something?

-What is it? -So, it is actually plant-based, yeah.

-So every-- -It's really nice.

-I prefer it because I don't really... -Do you?

...eat meat that much, so this is good.

-All right. -I like meat and it tastes good...

-Yeah? -...for not being meat.

[both] Mm-hmm.

-Would you be happy with that? -Yeah.

I'd be stoked. I love meat too much,

so I feel like if I went plant-based, I'd miss it,

but if this stuff tastes the same...

-Yeah. -...I'd be very happy with this.

[oil sizzling]

[playful music continues]

-...nice, messy fingers. -It is, yeah.

-[laughs] -Solid food burger.

-Okay. -Thank you.

Would it interest you to know that that's completely plant-based?

-I wouldn't know. So that, I would definitely-- -Wow.

-That's a winner. -Yeah, I'm amazed.

If burgers always tasted like that,

Would you be happy to just not eat a beef burger again?

-[unintelligible] -Yeah?

I'd like you to tell me which one of these nuggets

is plant-based and which one is real meat.

Okay.

[playful music continues]

It's very hard to say which one is...

[laughs]

They taste exactly the same, honestly.

-These are not the chicken? -No.

-That's interesting. -Yeah.

Which one of this is animal meat

and which one of this is plant-based?

Meat or not meat?

You're not sure? You're not sure.

-No. -No. Yeah, I'm not sure.

-Meat. -You...

-Yes. -...are wrong. [laughs]

-Oh. -Okay, okay. [chuckles]

-...but you think the second one was chicken. -Yeah.

-The second one was actually plant-based. -No way.

-Yeah, and the first one was chicken. -No way.

-Yeah. -Okay, I didn't-- I couldn't have guessed that.

I definitely thought the first one.

Yeah, definitely.

It seems that changing what we eat to a more sustainable diet

can also coincidentally be very beneficial to our health.

There is a growing understanding that we can actually prevent,

and in many cases even reverse some of our most common diseases

all through a shift towards a whole food vegan diet.

Humans can survive on many different kinds of diet,

but many decades of research has now shown us

that the best way of not just surviving,

but truly thriving, is on a whole food plant-based diet.

The human can be healthy on a plant-based diet,

without any animal products.

The major dietetic associations

around the world, including the British Dietetic Association,

have produced statements to say exactly that, that a diet

made up of whole plant foods is healthy for humans,

all stages of their life.

[Ms. Davis] And not only can they be healthy,

but they can restore or reclaim their health

adopting a plant-based diet.

There's certain areas, certain populations around the world

that have extraordinary health and longevity,

for example, a large number of centenarians,

people that live over 100, these so-called "Blue Zones."

What's really interesting about the Blue Zones,

they actually have more centenarians

than anywhere else in the world,

and a centenarian is someone

that lives at least 100 years.

But what-- what's really interesting about the Blue Zones

is when people reach these advanced ages,

they are still productive, so the Blue Zones

have taught us a lot.

And the bottom line is, we really want to try to emulate

what the people of the Blue Zones are doing.

[Kate Winslet] The five regions known as the Blue Zones

are Okinawa in Japan,

Sardinia in Italy, Icaria in Greece,

Nicoya in Costa Rica

and Loma Linda in California.

[Dr. Greger] So the question is, "Well, what do they all have in common?"

[Dr. Newman] They have a predominantly plant-based diet.

They have a diet rich in fruits and vegetables,

whole grains, beans, soy, lentils, chickpeas.

They have a diet rich in all these nutrients

and that's one thing that they have in common.

So the EPIC study is

the European Prospective Investigation

into Cancer and Nutrition.

It followed over half a million individuals

from ten European countries for more than 15 years.

Those in the EPIC study

that were eating predominantly plant-based

or eating high levels of fruits and vegetables lived longer,

had lower incidence of cancer and heart disease.

About two and a half thousand of the individuals

in the EPIC Oxford only ate plant foods,

so they were vegan. And even though

they weren't the most healthy vegans or healthy plant eaters,

you could show that these plant eaters were healthier,

they had lower incidence of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

From everything we have discovered on this journey,

it seems that moving away from animal foods

to plant-based foods instead

can not only give us a whole host of amazing health benefits,

but also gives us a chance to be able to leave

a sustainable planet for future generations to come.

Perhaps the single most meaningful change

that we can make as individuals

is ultimately deciding what ends up each day on our plates.

[Dr. Kong] We are running out of time.

The world community must acknowledge

that animal agriculture is the most destructive

industry on our planet.

We can't wait for government policies

and other organizations to create

a better life for ourselves.

We need to stand up now and make our voices heard.

Globally, for the typical consumer,

avoiding meat and dairy is probably the single biggest way

to reduce your impact on Earth.

Without addressing what we eat, we simply won't make it.

This is a number one priority.

This is a next step,

in taking responsibility for our communities,

our planet, our biosphere, our fellow species.

[all] Climate justice!

When do we want it? Now!

People say, "What can I do as an individual? Feels overwhelming."

Well, you can make individual choices. We all can.

Our individual choices affect the collective choices.

We hear about airplanes and cars.

And we're still going to use those things,

but the choices we make in our diet,

this agricultural business where we use animals

as the primary source of protein,

the one thing I think we can all do is,

as individuals, is make our own individual choices.

How we're going to live, how we're going to eat.

Plant-based diet makes all the difference in the world.

Just make some choices that are good for you,

and being good for you, it'll be good for the planet.

[Kate Winslet] This planet is our home.

And it is up to us what happens now.

History has shown that when we stand together,

united in a common cause, we can achieve great things.

Before us lies an opportunity to build a world

in which we can thrive.

But the clock is ticking...

and time... is running out.

[dramatic music fades]

[light dramatic music]

[dramatic music continues]

[music fades]