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Dutch climate film offers a fresh view on the climate issue

Copenhagen, 15 December 2009 – Meat the Truth, the very first documentary on livestock farming’s contribution to the emission of greenhouse gases, was invited to the KlimaForum09 in Copenhagen, on December 17th. Marianne Thieme, Member of Parliament in The Netherlands, will be attending and will be taking part in a debate after the screening.

Meat the Truth, presented by the Dutch Party for the Animals’ leader Marianne Thieme, forms an addendum to earlier documentaries on climate change, which failed to address one of the biggest causes of global warming. Numerous reports produced by renowned scientists from the World Watch Institute, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the Profetas project and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), were translated by researchers at the NGPF and the VU University Amsterdam into a concise visual document, which explains the impact of meat consumption on climate change, the use of natural resources and hunger in the world.

The film acts as an erratum to earlier films on climate change, such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, which while convincingly drawing attention to the issue of global warming, failed to mention one of the most important causes thereof. Meat the Truth demonstrates that worldwide the livestock industry is a far greater cause of global warming than all of the cars, trucks, planes and ships added together. The issues of the impact of livestock farming on water shortages and the unequal distribution of food resources are also raised in this documentary.

At the end of the film, practical solutions to tackle climate change at the level of the individual consumer are presented. The solutions have been calculated by scientists at the VU University Amsterdam and make it pertinently clear just how simple it could be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in large amounts. Here is just one example: if all people in the US decided to eat no meat for three days a week, then they would save almost 300 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would have a greater impact on the climate than replacing all US cars with Toyota Prius models. Even if people in the US didn’t eat meat for just one day a week, that would make a huge difference. It would save 99.6 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would save 46 million return flights from New York to Los Angeles and back from Los Angeles to New York.

The NGPF is the scientific bureau of the Party for the Animals; the worlds’ very first party for ‘non-humans’ to be represented in parliament. For the documentary Meat the Truth, the producers filmed in Washington DC, Norfolk (Virginia), Seattle and Amsterdam. Many celebrities participated in the making of the film such as Pamela Anderson, Bill Maher, Emily Deschanel, Tony Denison, James Cromwell, Elaine Hendrix, Kate Flannery , Debra Wilson Skelton, Joy Lauren, Esai Morales, Wayne Pacelle, Howard Lyman, and many others. Meat the Truth was produced by Claudine Everaert and Gertjan Zwanikken of Alalena Media Productions. The documentary has been screened all over the world, in countries such as Taiwan, Australia, New-Zealand, Ecuador, Canada, Italy, Germany, Argentina, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Singapore, Portugal and the UK, and was translated in 9 different languages: Dutch, Chinese, French, Croatian, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Slovenian and Italian. At this moment Korean, Turkisch, Gujuradi and German translations are being produced.

The Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation believes that the film will make a valuable contribution to the social discussion about a transition to a more plant-based and thus also a more humane society. The NGPF also hopes that the film will provide a showcase for prominent scientific reports, which have thus far proved inaccessible to the general public.

After the screening of MEAT THE TRUTH, Marianne Thieme will take place in a discussion panel. For more information: www.klimaforum.org

MEAT THE TRUTH @ KLIMAFORUM09
Date: December 17th 2009
Screening times: 21:00h
Location: DGI-byen, Green Hall
Address: Tietgensgade 65, 1704, Copenhagen
Website: www.meatthetruth.com