Our last post addressed Netflix’s documentary film Seaspiracy, a film that made a lot of fuss. The following post also addresses a recent Netflix environmental documentary film, but in its case, there was no fuss, and exactly for the same reasons that Seaspiracy did make many people angry. As opposed to Seaspiracy who “dared” to demanded people to take seriously the issue at the center of the film and simply stop eating fishes, Breaking Boundaries didn’t make people angry, because it doesn’t make any equivalent demands such as asking people to stop consuming animals, despite that such a film most certainly should have.

Basically, the film follows the scientist Johan Rockstrom who developed and studies the concept of Planetary Boundaries. These are earth systems and features which are essential for the planet’s functioning. There are nine planetary boundaries according Rockstrom and they are: Climate change, Biodiversity, Ocean Acidification, The Ozone Layer, Air Pollution, The Nitrogen and Phosphorus cycles, Freshwater, Land-system changes, and Novel Entities (human-made pollutants).
Except for the ozone layer depletion, which only indirectly relates to animal based food, all the rest are directly and heavily affected by animal industrial exploitation. And yet, animal based food plays an extremely marginal part in the film. So tiny, it can barely be noticed, partly because the word veganism (or even vegetarianism) isn’t even mentioned. Instead the viewers are advised to choose ‘healthy food’. Hopefully, the filmmakers at least had veganism in mind when they recommended healthy food. But unfortunately it wasn’t explicitly recommended.

What is suggested as a very effective way to draw down the carbon that is already overheating the planet is that people would plant trees.
Every person on earth, in every single meal, devastatingly affects the planet, and yet they are all offered to plant trees. Continue reading →