Kiss the Ground Documentary and Its Potentially Anti-Vegan Messaging

[Dream Sphere]

Hey, everyone. So, my Dad who's a big proponent of environmentalism, but who often believes in sketchy and dubious info (as far as seems to be lacking sufficient scientific backing/consensus on) which a lot of people on the left-wing side popularly support, e.g. Green New Deal, recently let me know of a documentary that focuses on methods to fight climate change through agricultural practice, in particular that which to do with the treatment of the soil, called Kiss the Ground.

My understanding is it is on Netflix in Canada now at least and presumably other nations like USA, and UK, as it's a new release and typically if Canada gets it, a lot of other countries will have too. I have yet to watch it though, but I have read a couple articles on it which framed things generally positively, one from the LA Times, and another by GreenMatters iirc, but which seemed to point out (along with what I recall my Dad telling me about the doc) a few things that the doc supposedly promotes which could not only be counter to veganism, but also have many drawbacks in actually meeting its goals of reversing or slowing climate change to more desirable states.

A few main points which I think it seems to promote (some of which seem to not differentiate between important distinctions like the potential differences between different pesticides, or which seems to outright claim something that as far as I know is untrue) from the couple articles I've read as well as talking with my Dad about it are:

-seems very anti-pesticide, making related claims like how supposedly (paraphrased) "pesticides have destroyed the microbiology in agricultural soil, as well as destroyed/destroying microbiological diversity in our bodies" even going as far to say that pesticides may somehow be responsible for weakening our immune systems and (I find this very emotionally manipulative given what's going on with the current popular/world issues, but they follow saying) allowing things like the coronavirus to impact us worse through our supposed worsened immune systems due to the proliferation of pesticides in our agriculture.

-seems very pro-animal based fertilizer/proliferation of using cattle for "healthy soil"

-makes an "us-vs-them" that appeals to certain left-wing sensibilities in how it portrays "big-business" being the bad guys who want to use pesticides for short term profit and long term supposed environmental degradation/destruction, and focuses on "the little guys" doing these sorts of "bright ideas no one ever thought about before" in a kind of way that seems very emotionally manipulative, though it's not necessarily emotionally manipulative for these two forces to be at-odds and for the "little guys" to be the good guys if it so happens the little guys are actually doing something better. However, this framing which they seem to be making in the context they're making it does really seem more like propaganda than just so happening to be showing a case where some alternative and relatively niche practice seems to actually be better.

So, I don't know nearly as much about agricultural practice as some of you on here, but I would like to start by saying some potentially challenging questions and such to what ideas this documentary seems to promote, and I'm curious about whether I'm on point, or mistaken about any of this, as well as I would love to hear what others here think of what it seems to claim, or what it claims if you've watched the doc, something which I plan to be doing soon, and which I will make a reply or update here about once I've actually watched the entirety of its presentation.

The thing about pesticide I would ask is "aren't there different types of pesticides?" as "couldn't some not be harmful to humans or the soil, yet be effective against insect type pests?" like afaik there are some pesticides which particularly target the chitin in bugs' shells/exoskeletons, and humans are composed of 0% chitin afaik, and I'm skeptical of how much that kind of pesticide would hurt soil, though I suppose if worms happen to be an important part of soil health, and they have any kind of health detriment to these anti-chitin pesticides that that may be problematic, though I really don't know about a number of important issues there.

I do suppose some pesticides may be both bad for soil, human health, and all that which they say it's bad for, but my understanding was that modern practices which are the mainstream/conventional ones were a lot safer, whereas older types of pesticides ironically used in "organic" farming may actually do what this documentary seems to claim all pesticides to do.

Also, in response to this whole idea about needing cattle around for fertilizer, I'm curious if any of that doc's researchers or proponents of the claims it makes had ever heard of veganic farming? Couldn't that make soil healthier without the use of cattle/animal fertilizer? Or maybe the doc has some kind of weird issue with the transportation of vegan compost somehow being more "environmentally unfriendly", as they may believe keeping cows for fertilizer "on-site" may mitigate the travel, yet they probably ignore the methane those cows produce. So, I would guess its entirely possible that shipping vegan based compost many kilometers away would probably still be less impactful than having cows on-site for fertilizer, as my reasoning is based around the sheer existence and maintenance/care for the cows may be so significantly more impactful that you may have to be shipping vegan fertilizer so incredibly far for the impact of that travel to match the entire impact of the cow's existence and continued existence.

Though I don't know a lot about veganic farming myself, I have thought it just makes sense to focus on vegan ways to make soil healthier for crops to grow in, since we won't have nearly as many animals in the world to produce animal based fertilizer if most people were to go vegan. So, their focusing on animal based fertilizer as some environmental savior really seems to have made veganic agriculture as a major oversight, which I fear may have been made intentionally so, as one of the articles I read did seem to suggest that this doc was claiming this animal fertilizer based agriculture to be the most practical and effective way to combat climate change, and specifically seemed to compare it to veganism and put veganism in an unfavorable light. Whereas, with veganism + veganic farming that seems like the best of both worlds and the only thing making that "impractical" is the public's unwillingness to make some minor lifestyle changes, which this doc seems to reinforce the public's reasoning to treat veganism as "too much work" and according to this documentary seemingly not even one of the more impactful changes a person could make. So this doc really just seems to suggest that the average consumer should be complacent, or rather that they if they do want to be good "environmental activists" to encourage their farmers to use *animal fertilizer* which from all I know seems probably extremely counterproductive, and I worry that the people behind this doc may have intentionally made this doc to deceive people into rallying around promoting animal usage in agriculture plus devaluing veganism.

Anyways, I know I typed a lot and a lot of it near the end was kinda rambly and not very concise, but I would love to hear what others have to say about this doc, as it seems very suspect to me as being anti-vegan in a way where they're just outright misrepresenting things and playing on ignorant people's emotions to help impassion people to promote this doc's message, the message which may actually backfire in its supposed goals, which makes me wonder if the people behind this actually even care about the environment. Though maybe I'm ignorant of something and have assumed too much about the doc's content itself (as I haven't watched it but read just a couple articles and talked with someone who has watched it,) so definitely challenge anything I've personally claimed or said if I've said anything wrong here, as I would like to become at least a bit more knowledgeable about these agricultural practices and how veganism relates to these, as ideally I would like for veganism to logically fit in a way with making our environment healthier and more stable for everyone, thus making my care for animals, as well as the environment and how it affects people and animals not at-odds with each other.

Edit: Probably should've put this in the vegan discussion sub-forum, as this really relates to veganism a lot more than just solely focusing on environmentalism (thinking the environmentalism focus made it more apt for the other-philosophy sub-forum originally), but I don't mind it staying here, just wanted to say I'd totally understand if this thread were moved for the sake of better organizing it.

[Red]

I haven't seen it, but if your post is anything to go by, it seems to be standard pseudo-environmentalist BS. It's unfortunate that so much pseudoscience has to be in the way of the movement, and I'm assuming the documentary is also against nuclear power.

I may watch it if I ever get the chance, but if it proliferates an 'Us Vs. Them' mentality, I don't think that's useful as far as environmentalism goes; While of course governments have to step in and do something by promoting nuclear companies over fossil fuel ones, we as citizens and consumers have to take a lot of the responsibility for this (which people don't like doing).

I'll see what brimstone says though.

[brimstoneSalad]

@Red definitely worth watching if you have time/access, it seems to be pretty popular so it may be a good thing to make an article about it on the wiki too.

[Red]

@brimstoneSalad I only use Netflix to watch the Garfield Show, but it seems as though the documentary is on Netflix. I may have a hard time watching, since whenever I watch shit like this I always pause every 10 minutes and just refute the BS I hear out loud.

[brimstoneSalad]

@Red Well then record yourself while you do it.

[Red]

@Red Well then record yourself while you do it.

Maybe I'll get @thebestofenergy to help out with that.