When you think of global warming, it’s common sense to associate the issue with pollution caused by a human population that’s grown at a staggering rate since the birth of industrialization. Filmmakers Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, however, recently discovered that this isn’t necessarily the case. There’s a much larger culprit that’s, in fact, the leading cause of global warming, water depletion, deforestation, species extinction, and ocean dead zones. Their findings? It’s the agricultural industry that’s primarily to blame.

The filmmaking duo’s new cut of the documentary, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, which is executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, is a controversial look at the animal agriculture industry’s practices and collisions with environmental organizations like Greenpeace. Recently acquired by Netflix and premiering globally on the streaming service September 15, the film depicts the tangled web of corruption within the industry that brings food to the tables of most Americans. Throughout the filmmaking process, Andersen and Kuhn interviewed dozens of environmental activists, some of whom were routinely threatened for speaking out against pro-animal agriculture organizations with limitless legal resources and congressional protection. If you think you’re going to sit through another horrific outcry like Food, Inc. — think again.

We spoke with Andersen and Kuhn about how the project came to be, the unnerving truths they discovered along the way, how much time we realistically have left on Earth, and what we can all do right now to help change the very grim (near) future of our planet.

Decider: Kip, I thought it was a bold choice, but an arguably necessary one to put yourself, as the filmmaker, into your documentary. Was that always the plan?

Kip Andersen: It was in a way, because it follows my story of the truth of really what happened. It happened awhile back and it follows my journey. I didn’t really necessarily want to be in it that much — I wanted to be behind the camera — but we just realized while we were making it we had to include me as someone people can relate to, you know, based on trying to find a way to live ethically and environmentally sound as I possibly can and seeing if there’s a possible way to do that while eating animal products. So it just seemed like a logical and entertaining way to follow my journey as people can jump along and follow my journey with me. As I discover, they do, [too].

Keegan, what were your first thoughts when Kip first approached you with the idea for this project?

Keegan Kuhn: You know, I thought it was a brilliant idea and just seemed like a film. We were kind of actually shocked that the film hadn’t been made. It seemed like this is such a huge story but no one was talking about it. As we went further down the process of researching and finding out more about this industry, the more shocked and amazed and the more urgent we felt it was needed to make the film.

Given the subject matter, it seems like this is the kind of film that needs that word-of-mouth push made possible by a streaming service. What has it been like working with Netflix?

Kuhn: Working with Netflix has been amazing. Basically, our dream is to have the film on Netflix in the way that we’re doing it, so it’s been ideal.

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There are certain scenes in the film that are very difficult to watch. The scene in which the camera locks in on a live cow being pushed to slaughter by a bulldozer was so startling, yet the most traumatizing part is that it’s happening constantly. Were there any scenes that were too brutal to include?

Andersen: Some people [think they know what it’s going to be] before they watch it. Because it has the word “cow” in it, it might be some film where you’re going to see some gruesome things about animals. But our focus was really to skip beyond the things such as factory farms, which most people know about, and to focus really on the most “sustainable” [farming] — the grass-fed and the organic farms — and to show that what’s happening on the factory farm level is essentially happening on [those, too]. It doesn’t matter if it is organic or grass-fed beef. As you discover in the film, ironically most things such as free-range, pasture-fed, and grass-fed [products] are actually more unsustainable. Going back to the gory thing, we didn’t want that to be really a part of the film at all, so we left as much as that out as we could. I think most people are bombarded by that on an everyday level.

Do you have hope that people with deeply ingrained eating habits have the possibility to change in time to help sustain and save the planet?

Kuhn: I absolutely believe that real change is possible and is possible today. A shift in diet is one of those revolutionary steps that we can take that will have immediate impact on the planet and ecosystems. Driving less is great and important, but we won’t see an impact to climate change for one hundred years even if everybody stopped using fossil fuels. Whereas if everybody stopped supporting animal agriculture, we would see immediate impacts, and within ten to fifteen years, the planet would start to regulate itself again with everything: water use, deforestation, soil, forest erosion, ocean dead zones. All of these things could stop immediately if we all chose to stop supporting this industry. Virtually no other lifestyle change has that sort of impact.

Andersen: The transformation is already happening, because the people who do know the information after seeing this film have already made the choice to take that next level — not only for the environment but also for their own health. So it’s happening actually really, really fast. I think it’s just the fact that people didn’t know how much their diet does affect everything. And once you do know, you can never not know it. The film’s been around for about a year, and it’s unbelievable the thousands of stories we’ve heard of people changing their diets after they know the truth.

What kind of outreach and feedback have you both experienced since the release of Cowspiracy?

Kuhn: The response for the film has been amazing. We’ve had people from all across the globe write us who have seen the film through theatrical screenings, educational screenings, or through our website — the previous version of the film. It’s just been incredible, an unbelievable outpouring of support, and we think fans of Cowspiracy are really going to love this new edit of the film that’s going to be exclusively on Netflix.

Andersen: What people love about it so much too is that the film is an all-encompassing [look at] every single environmental issue known today of what’s destroying the planet. So it’s not focusing on say, fossil fuels, or films you see at environmental film fests that focus on fracking or the drought. This one film and this one topic addresses every single topic. It’s so engrossing, and that’s why it’s so incredibly powerful because it’s kind of a one-stop-shop for every environmental issue.

The core of the film is supported heavily by the amount of research you both did. Have you come across any numbers in your recent research as to how many people have made the transition to a plant-based diet in recent years?

Kuhn: I don’t know those numbers off the top of my head. It’s definitely growing. The vegetarian and vegan population in the United States just continues to grow more and more and around the world as well. So we are definitely making a shift. It’s easier now, more than ever, to be vegetarian or vegan, at least in the United States, because of just all of the abundance of plant-based alternatives to animal foods.

There’s a brief scene in the film that was fairly startling in regards to the monetary aspect of this issue: that even if you don’t eat meat, you’re making up for the costs of someone who does. Can you go into a little more detail about that? Because people tend to perk up when they hear an issue like this could be affecting their finances.

Kuhn: According to David Robinson Simon, who wrote the book Meatonomics, the externalized cost of animal agriculture is $414 billion a year. And that externalized cost is one that is put on society that the corporations don’t have to take on themselves. And that takes the form of subsidies: the animal agriculture industry in the United States is heavily subsidized by the federal government, which [comes from] tax dollars. But then there’s the environmental cost of how climate change and water pollution and deforestation and top-soil erosion affects all other industries that the animal agriculture industry doesn’t have to pay for and doesn’t have to be held accountable for. There’s health care costs of people getting sick and the associated diseases with a high animal-consuming diet. So this list just goes on and on. But doing further research, that $414 billion figure is actually very conservative by some researchers’ estimates. Every time you eat a burger — that four-dollar burger that you’re buying — there’s really another seven dollars of additional costs that you’re paying for through taxes. Again, whether or not you’re eating meat, you’re going to be paying for it in one way or another.

Kip, I know you explicitly say so in the film that the more you uncovered, the more afraid you were to go forward with the project. But at what point did the fear really set in?

Andersen: That’s what’s cool about the film. It really follows [us] when it happened. Right after we interviewed Will Potter and especially Howard Lyman. Sometime we’re going to release the entire, incredibly powerful interview of Howard Lyman, but he really, I guess for lack of better words, he really scared us. We were even thinking… we were asking him what country should we go to for a few months while this gets released. It was scary, but as he said in the longer edit of the film [that] you have to do what’s right, and this is way bigger than any one individual, essentially. The fear of not doing something has to supersede the individual fear of any individual because this is so much bigger than any one of us. So you have to do what you can do because, if we don’t, none of us are going to be around anyway. That’s the scary part: not doing something. People ask, “Are you afraid now?” [The answer’s] no, because the movie is already done, and we have to do everything we can. There’s just no room for fear.

Do you think that if more people seek answers and education about what’s really going on, it will pressure environmental agencies to actually do what they set out to do in the first place?

Kuhn: I think the film has real potential to inspire supporters and organizations to start addressing animal agriculture and promptly addressing animal agriculture. There are a few organizations who will talk animal agriculture’s impact on the planet, but they fail to properly address it in perspective. And there are organizations that are starting to change and talk about this, and that’s the hope. We really want to champion any organization that is willing to properly put the focus on animal agriculture where it belongs, and we’ll bend over backwards to show that support.

After watching the documentary, you get the sense that this isn’t a final product and there’s so much more to be done. For both of you, what’s the next step in getting the word out?

Andersen: What we would say is: do your own research. Do you own research and then share it. This information has to be spread. And with the technology of social media and the internet, it’s incredible how fast the truth and information can get out, so we need to use that as an activist tool. It’s our most powerful tool.

Kuhn: Just to add to that, we really encourage people to go to our website, cowspiracy.com, where we have a fact page that has all the studies and all the facts used in the film and links to the studies. And again, for people to do their own research. They’ll find that the numbers we use in the film are extremely conservative. We tend to go for very conservative figures because we know there’s going to be some pushback.

Actually, now that you mention it: there are a couple of different numbers mentioned throughout the documentary — all pretty startling of course. But realistically, how much time do we have before you think Congress will have to step in and make mass, rapid changes if we continue to keep this up?

Kuhn: It really depends on what information you’re looking at. Some would say the boat has already sailed, and others would say we have ten, fifteen, twenty, or fifty years to make up for the damage that we’ve caused. I think the reality is that, one way or another, we can all make a difference today if we stop supporting this industry. And that’s why, at the end of the film, there’s the stats: every single day, by switching to a plant-based vegan diet, you save 1,100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain, and the figures go on and on. And to focus on that, and to just remember what you can do today, regardless of the bigger picture.

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Photos: Netflix