10-12-2007

First Dutch climate film ‘Meat the Truth’ presented in the Tuschinski

Today the Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation presented the first Dutch climate film in the Tuschinski cinema in Amsterdam. The film, which is presented by the Party for the Animals’ leader Marianne Thieme, forms an addendum to earlier climate films, which failed to address the biggest cause of global warming. Numerous scientific reports including the World Watch Institute, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, the Profetas research study, which various Dutch universities were involved, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), were translated by researchers at the NGPF and the Free University Amsterdam into conclusions that even children will be able to understand. Indeed, children have the greatest interest in protecting the climate. The film was produced by Claudine Everaert and Gertjan Zwanikken.

For the documentary Meat the Truth, in which Marianne Thieme demonstrates the relationship between the greenhouse effect and livestock production, recordings were made in Washington DC, Norfolk (Virginia), Seattle and Amsterdam. The following individuals also participated in the making of the film: Georgina Verbaan, Antonie Kamerling, Karen van Holst Pellekaan, Yvonne Kroonenberg, Mensje van Keulen, Henk Schiffmacher, Dolf Jansen, Giel Beelen, Lousewies van der Laan, Wim T. Schippers, Harry Aiking, Wayne Pacelle, Matt Prescott, Howard Lyman and many others.

The Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation, the scientific bureau of the Party for the Animals, chose to compile the best available current scientific information and to translate it into a film suitable for the general public. The film acts as an erratum to earlier climate films, which while convincingly drawing attention to the issue of global warming, failed to mention one of the most important causes thereof. In the film it became clear that worldwide the livestock industry is a far greater cause of global warming than all of the cars, lorries, aeroplanes and ships added together. A dairy cow emits just as many greenhouse gasses as 4.5 cars. 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.

These solutions have been calculated by scientists at the Free 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 Dutch people decided to eat no meat for three days a week, then we could reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as we would by taking 3 million cars off the Dutch roads. Even if Dutch people ate less meat for just one day a week, that would make a huge difference to Dutch climate policy. All of the climate goals of the Dutch government for private households would be realised in one fell swoop.

The film will be shown in movie theatres and art house cinemas throughout the Netherlands in the spring and will then be released on DVD. Even before the presentation there has been great interest the production of an international version for cinemas in the United States and Australia. Last week the biggest newspaper in Argentina, La Nacion, devoted attention to the documentary in a full page article.

The Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation hopes 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 Foundation also hopes that the film will provide a showcase for prominent scientific reports, which have thus far proved inaccessible to the general public.