Kiss The Ground has partnered with the National Science Teaching Association to make the documentary available in schools for free.
The climate-change film, narrated by vegan actor Woody Harrelson, debuted on Netflix last year.
Kiss The Ground
It explores how regenerative agriculture ‘could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world’.
Moreover, it features a ‘revolutionary group of activists, scientists, farmers, and politicians’.
Backlash
Despite Kiss The Ground‘s success, it has received backlash. Some critics argue the film could just be ‘a last-ditch effort to keep meat relevant‘.
Nutritionist Simon Hill and environmental researcher Nicholas Carter penned an Op-Ed outlining three critical areas the documentary ‘falls short’:
1 – Claims that holistic grazing can reverse climate change. This form of regenerative agriculture is by no means the ‘silver bullet’ that it’s so often portrayed to be – and is certainly not what the world’s leading climate scientists are most excited by.
2 – Creation of a false dichotomy. The documentary carefully positions holistic grazing as the answer to intensive animal agriculture (including the mono-cropping that occurs to feed factory-farmed animals). I’m sure we can all agree that factory farming is a blight on humanity, and there is far too much mono-cropping, but assuming that it’s either this intensive form of animal agriculture or holistic grazing, is not accurate. For a great deal of land, there are other, more evidence-based ways to sequester carbon. Unfortunately, these incredibly superior solutions are less sexy because they are not tying livestock, and more specifically the consumption of beef, to the solution.
3 – Unclear about how the proposed solutions would affect our diets. Regardless of the above claims being scientifically supported or not… If one is to advocate for a shift to holistic grazing this will inevitably result in a dramatic reduction in global meat supply. In turn, this means shifting to more plant-based diets.
You can read the full critique of these points here
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Excellent film! Needs to be seen by everyone. It could have explained more about the worlds agricultural dilemma, and the claim that it can reverse climate change is possibly a step too far, It can go some way but without reform to industrial carbon and population reduction it can only go so far.
It’s not a “meat v no meat “ issue, it’s about SOIL. It’s about the regeneration and maintenance of agricultural land.
Animal Ag as practiced today is a disaster and has to go! The simplistic solution offered by many Ecologists, is to eat less meat ( or non at all ), but it doesn’t solve the problem for the following reasons. ( Applies to arable land only )
( 1 It has been estimated that ( due to current farming methods ) the world will lose most of it’s major croplands within the next 60 yrs.
( 2 We are currently losing 23 hectares of land per minute. The population growth so far this year stands at 6,680,000.
( 3 It takes 500 yrs to create 1.5 cm of topsoil amid unimpeded ecological change. Currently soil erosion is 100 times greater than soil formation, this doesn’t take in to account the effects of salination and waterlogging.
( 4 A large percentage of current arable land was never suitable for crops in the first place, ( only made possible by heavy machinery and chemical intervention ).
( 5 Add too the above, the effects of ploughing ( carbon release ), the use of chemical and animal fertiliser laid on bare ground ( nitrous oxide ) as well as herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides and you have a massive disaster, not just for the production of human food but for the biosphere as a whole. Nitrous oxide has a global warming potential 298 times greater than carbon, lasts for 120 yrs and affects the ozone layer, 75% of excess nitrous oxide comes from arable use.
( 6 The use of regenerative farming ( in all forms, not just livestock ) is of vital importance for the future of the planet, it’s been tried and tested on farms large and small all over the world. Many agronomists agree that you can totally remove industrial agriculture and still feed the world. All it needs is the will. So introducing the concept to schools can only be a good thing.