CEF and the Environmental Film Festival present a screening of the documentary What’s For Dinner?

CEF is proud to host a documentary by the Chinese filmmaker Jian Yi. His film What's for Dinner? provides a unique look into the rapidly growing consumption of meat and other animal products in China. China now consumes more than a quarter of all meat produced worldwide, although per capita rates are half of that of the United States. Through interactions with a wide range of Chinese citizens from different walks of life—retired pig farmer, vegan restaurateur, livestock entrepreneur and communities contending with water polluted by waste from factory farms—the film examines the impacts this monumental dietary shift is having in terms of sustainability, climate change, public health, food security, and animal welfare.

Post-Screening Discussants:

Janet Larsen is the Director of Research and one of the incorporators of the Earth Policy Institute, an independent non-profit environmental research organization based in Washington, DC.  Earth Policy Institute strives to view the world through an interdisciplinary lens; to that end, Janet covers a range of topics, including food and agriculture, population, natural resource availability, energy, and climate change.  She has managed the research for all the institute’s books, including the Plan B series and Full Planet, Empty Plates. Previously she worked at Worldwatch Institute, providing research support for State of the World and Vital Signs.  Janet holds a degree in Earth Systems from Stanford University.  She has conducted fieldwork involving salt-loving plants on the Chilean coast and poison dart frogs in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest and continues to enjoy spending time outdoors.

Mia MacDonald is the Co-Executive Producer of What's for Dinner?, a short documentary film directed by Jian Yi. She is the Executive Director of Brighter Green (www.brightergreen.org), a New York-based public policy action tank works to raise awareness and encourage dialogue on and policy attention to issues that span the environment, animals, and sustainable development globally, with a particular focus on equity and rights. What's for Dinner? grew out of policy research and analysis by Brighter Green on China’s changing food systems, shifting dietary patterns, and climate change. MacDonald is also a Senior Fellow of the Worldwatch Institute, worked closely with the late Nobel peace laureate Wangari Maathai on writing and other projects, and has taught in the environmental studies program at New York University and the human rights program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Jennifer Turner is the Director of the China Environment Forum at Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum.

Location: 6th Floor Flom Auditorium