First a little about me. I am a Geography student at University College London in my third and final year. Geography is very broad and it was clear to me within my first year at university that my interests lay in the physical aspect of the subject.
When the opportunity arose to identify a topic related to Global Environmental Change and maintain a blog on the subject I had a difficult decision to make. This decision was all but made for me however one evening when I was flicking through Netflix and the documentary 'Cowspiracy' popped up. After reading the description I decided it would be worth a watch and I most certainly was not disappointed! In a nutshell the documentary, filmed and produced by Kip Andersen, examines the often overlooked environmental implications of an ever-growing animal agriculture industry. What is striking is that Anderson claims Agribusiness (the group of industries dealing with agricultural produce and services required in farming) is the single leading cause of deforestation and water consumption while also emitting more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation industry. Now if being at university has taught me anything it is to be sceptical about everything I see and read however the arguments Anderson conveys are particularly engaging and he himself questions why Agribusiness has so far seen very little opposition. In fact many environmental organisations fail to mention it entirely on their websites! Overall the film gave me good introduction to the issue of agribusiness and I was left wanting to know more about it's impact on the environment.
Throughout the course of this blog I hope to examine agribusiness within the context of global environmental change, narrowing in on specific problems and examining case studies from across the world. It will both be learning process for me and hopefully for you too!
For the next 3 months I will be posting weekly so be sure to check back in soon to see where this blog is headed.
I shall leave you with this incredible statistic from the film...
Interesting topic Finn, can't wait to see where you take this
ReplyDelete