
There have been many documentaries about the risks of genetically engineered foods. These include The Future of Food, GMO OMG, The World According to Monsanto and Genetic Roulette, to name a few. But the dark, complex world of GMOs hasn't been the subject of a fictional film—until now.
Consumed tells the story of a Sophie, a mother trying to deal with her young son's mysterious illness. She can't figure out what is causing her son's nasty rashes and vomiting. Then she starts researching and discovers genetically engineered foods. From there, Sophie, played by Zoe Lister-Jones, embarks on a desperate quest to help her son while becoming consumed in the world of GMOs with its safety concerns, corporate domination and questionable science. By the end of the film, Sophie fears the safety of foods that Americans eat.
Consumed director Daryl Wein said the time was ripe for a narrative film about GMOs. “No one had made one," he said. “We felt it was important to tell the story and open people's eyes about GMOs. Seeing this issue in a movie is a little more digestible, no pun intended."
Wein worked on the script with his wife, Lister-Jones, who is also the producer.
“At first, we didn't know what the story would be, but as we dug deeper, we realized there were a few signposts we wanted to hit," he said. “We wanted to look at characters in the real world, such as farmers, scientists, biotech companies and people eating processed foods."
Famous Actors Play Key Roles
Famous actors play key roles in the film. Danny Glover is an organic farmer whose farm is threatened by a multi-national biotechnology company called Clonestra. Victor Garber is Clonestra's CEO. Griffin Dunne is a whistle-blowing ex-scientist. Taylor Kinney is a Clonestra employee who befriends Sophie and begins to doubt the aims of his company.
Lister-Jones's Sophie is the focus of the film. “We wanted the film to be anchored by a working class mother and son," Wein said.
The film manages to cover many of the controversies surrounding GMOs including corporate greed and control over seeds, threats to organic farms, lack of transparency and intimidation of scientists who question the technology.
Wein says their goal was to entertain and inform. “We want to open people's eyes to what is happening with GMO foods, spark a dialogue around our food and get people engaged in this issue," she said.
Consumed is available on video on demand platforms, such as iTunes and Amazon, as well as through the film's website.
Watch the trailer here:
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- Redwoods are the world's tallest trees.
- Now scientists have discovered they are even bigger than we thought.
- Using laser technology they map the 80-meter giants.
- Trees are a key plank in the fight against climate change.
They are among the largest trees in the world, descendants of forests where dinosaurs roamed.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
<p><span>Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.</span></p><p>The results are striking: suggesting the trees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested.</a> Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a process known as reiteration</a>.</p>New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
<p>Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/carbon-sequestration-natural-forest-regrowth" target="_blank">growth could absorb billions of tons</a> of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.</p><p>"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank"> in the journal Nature</a>. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."</p><p>Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage</a>, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.</p>Carbon Capture Champions
<p><span>Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302584" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare</a><span>, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.</span></p><p>While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute</a>, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).</p>Pixabay
<p>Although <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/1420/files/original/Deforestation_fronts_-_drivers_and_responses_in_a_changing_world_-_full_report_%281%29.pdf?1610810475" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years</a>, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.</p><p><span>That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (</span><a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a><span>) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its </span><a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf09AAC/trillion-trees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform</a><span> to support the project.</span></p><p>That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.</p><p>"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to <a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a>. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."</p><p><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor">Reposted with permission from the </em><span><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/redwoods-store-more-co2-and-are-more-enormous-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></span></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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