Academy award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore and associates discuss their new documentary, 'Planet of the Humans,' a documentary that says we are selling out the green movement to wealthy interests and corporate America.
Planet of the Humans
courageous documentary about overshoot and greenwashing
by Jeff Gibbs, Michael Moore, Ozzie Zehner
the film is not perfect, but does discuss how there are too many of us using too much stuff, which is not solvable with a technological fix - the main reason the foundation funded Democratic Party environmentalists are loudly protesting against this message
released on Earth Day 2020 - free to watch for a month
www.planetofthehumans.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bop8x24G_o0
Michael Moore, filmmakers respond to criticism of new bombshell environmental film
411,526 views
Apr 28, 2020
note: in the interview, Moore mentions a source at the National Institutes of Health told him to expect coronavirus pandemic to be a two year problem, at least. I'm unaware of any "climate" group who said before the outbreak shut down most aviation that it would have massive impact on energy usage. I said in February at this website and elsewhere that it would likely reduce fossil fuels more than climate activism. The filmmakers did mention this in their interview above, but I'm not sure whether they knew this before March 2020. Gibbs did mention that the economic impacts of 9/11 and the 2008 "recession" reduced energy combustion more than climate activists, a heretical perspective that is correct.
- Mark Robinowitz]
reviews:
- Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
- Michael Donnelly (grew up in Flint, Michigan, friend of Michael and Jeff, lifelong environmentalist, forest defender)
- Alice Friedemann, EnergySkeptic.com
- Green Education and Legal Fund
- Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
- Lloyd Marbet, "More Heat Than Light on a Planet of Humans"
- Robert Bolman, "Much Ado About the Laws of Physics"
Brian Czech, Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
https://steadystate.org/planet-of-the-humans-puts-sacred-cows-out-to-pasture/
Michael Donnelly
www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/27/the-meltdown-of-the-careerist-greens/
APRIL 27, 2020
The Meltdown of the Careerist Greens
AUGUST 9, 2019
Consuming the "Planet of the Humans:" The Most Important Documentary of the Century
also at CounterPunch
www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/24/americas-great-greenwashing/
APRIL 24, 2020
America's Great Greenwashing
by ROBERT HUNZIKER
Alice Friedemann, EnergySkeptic.com
http://energyskeptic.com/2020/movie-review-of-michael-moores-planet-of-the-humans/
comment I posted at Energy Skeptic (one of the best energy sites):
Mark Robinowitz says:
May 1, 2020 at 4:41 pm
The objections to the film from what was once called "Gang Green" (the foundation funded environmental auxiliary to the Democratic Party) reminds me of similar objections to Oliver Stone's film JFK. With that film, the institutional left joined in with more conservative establishment figures to denounce it as a bunch of lies. Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, The Nation were particularly disgusting in their defense of the Warren Dulles Commission. Partisanship is often just a different flavor of misdirection.
I'm typing this using direct solar PV electricity – bought my first panel in 1990 – and completely agree with the film's conclusions.
How can we share an abundant, round, finite planet while regenerating resources for future generations of all species?
Green Education and Legal Fund
http://gelfny.org/uncategorized/deconstructing-the-planet-of-the-humans/
Deconstructing the Planet of the Humans
There is a potentially good movie waiting to break out of Planet of the Humans by Jeff Gibbs. Unfortunately, it suffers from a lack of fact checking and a strong editor (something Michael Moore presumably could have helped with).
The movie raises a number of important points. Unfortunately, its extensive use of outdated data, particularly on renewable energy, undermines its credibility and casts a shadow over other points it is trying to raise. Its personal attacks on the motivations of some prominent climate activists also does not help.
It is certainly correct that the world has made meager progress in moving to renewable energy and cutting greenhouse carbon emissions. A major factor in the lack of progress – which the film fails to highlight – is the political power of the fossil fuel industry, driven by campaign contributions in the US and its blatant corruption / subversion of democracy worldwide.
A key point the film makes is that capitalism and its relentless and exploitative drive for profits is a root cause of the climate crisis. We will not survive climate change unless we replace capitalism, a point that few climate groups publicly make. Capitalism is also at the core of many of the world's other problems from militarism, racism, income inequality, etc. The film apparently does not outline the political / economic system (e.g., democratic eco-socialism) that needs to replace it.
The renewable energy industry at the moment is part of that capitalist system – their prime goal remains profits, not saving life on the planet. (For instance the renewable energy industry successfully blocked the proposal by Governor Cuomo to publicly own new renewable.)
The film is hardly the first to point out the major problems with the "non-profit industrial complex". Foundations are tax shelters for the rich who have driven climate change; almost all prefer the promotion of incremental changes that they can laud as a success rather than more fundamental challenges both on issues and on the power / economic structure. The hunt for funding and foundation dollars, and the need to provide the type of (small) successes that attract such funding, heavily influences what positions groups promote. Funding is provided to the groups that are less threatening to the interests of the power elite and is used to undercut the more progressive voices.
Funding was certainly a contributing factor in the major mistake by many of promoting gas as a bridge fuel, ignoring the negative impact of methane emissions.
The issue of funding is why grassroots groups, whose prime focus in not funding but to save their families and communities, are the ones that initiate the most important and cutting edge campaigns; if successful, the large groups then join (and often try to weaken the demands). We saw this with the fracking effort in NY. There is also the larger philosophical debate around social change between promoting incremental reforms and revolutionary change.
Closely related is the interlocking ties between many liberal groups, the democratic party and government funding. This is what led environmental visionary David Brower (who revamped Sierra Club, got kicked out, then started Friends of Earth) to point out in 1996 that Clinton and Gore in their first term did more damage to the environment than Reagan and Bush 1 managed in their 3 terms. Many will defend such relationship as a pragmatic response to how power is wielded in the U.S. but it has failed to produce the needed changes. It has too often silenced groups when the Democrats are in charge. The Democrats, particularly starting with Clinton, mortgaged their party to corporate interests and has become one of the most conservative, pro-corporate political parties among the world's industrial "democracies".
Nor is it news that progress on halting climate change and moving to renewable energy has largely been a failure to date. We are rapidly headed to climate collapse. The Paris climate deal is a lot of hot air, not a real mobilization to halt carbon emissions. In NYS, the recently enacted CLCPA climate deal is inadequate to the task at hand. It is applauded by many as a historic breakthrough though it largely mirrors an Executive Order first issued in 2009. Supporters of the deal argue that we need to reinforce politicians when they finally take a small step in the right direction in order to encourage them to do more. Others however argue that applause for baby steps reinforces their desire for such small actions. With time rapidly running out to save life on the planet, more critical analysis is required.
Most climate activists are aware of the barriers involved in moving to 100% renewable energy, from grid transmission issues, reliability, battery storage, etc. Progress however is being made on all these fronts, something the movie failed to acknowledge. More will be made as increased research resource are devoted to it.
Virtually all actions have some negative environmental impact. Each action needs carefully review of the costs and benefits over its lifecycle, and care must be taken to minimize negative impacts. And more important than renewables is to invest first in energy reduction, conservation and efficiency.
The film also makes the point that our present lifestyle, especially in the United States, is not sustainable. We will not survive climate change, the collapse of the ecosystem and the sixth great extinction of species by merely plugging our society into renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. We don't need billions of electric cars, far-flung suburbs and a chemical-driven food system. Decentralize and localize.
Many climate activists understand this but worry that highlighting the need for fundamental lifestyle change will generate a backlash among the public and undercut support for climate action. We already hear charges of nanny gate and wanting to stop people from buying hamburgers at McDonalds. COVID-19 however has resulted in a dramatic change in lifestyles, providing an opportunity for re-examination of how we organize our lives and work.
A significant part of the movie is taking up with correctly criticizing support for biomass, especially the utility-scale burning of wood for electricity, which is particularly prevalent in Vermont. However, many if not most climate activists now realize the fallacy of biomass. Positions change as more information become available. In 1985, I wrote one of the first reports pointing out the environmental and financial dangers from garbage incineration at a time when almost all of the environmental movement was promoting it (as I had done in prior years). In a few years most groups switched to opposing incineration.
Post Carbon Institute: Crazy Town podcast
Paying attention to the buzz around Planet of the Humans, the new film by Michael Moore, is like standing in the middle of a three-ring circus. In ring #1 are the filmmakers, who raise critical questions about how renewable sources can power industrial society, but do so with questionable facts and mean-spirited attacks. In ring #2 are the left-wing enviros, who are barfing out lazy accusations of ecofascism and doing all they can to avoid addressing the film's legitimate questions about population and consumption. In ring #3 are the oil-soaked, right-wing libertarians who think this film will help them keep earning and burning their way to the bank at the end of Armageddon Road. Asher, Rob, and Jason grapple with the cacophony, hash out the good and bad of the film and the response to it, and argue for an honest, messy-middle approach to the transition away from fossil fuels. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.
Post Carbon Institute, Richard Heinberg
www.postcarbon.org/review-planet-of-the-humans/
A few days ago, Emily Atkin posted a reaction to Michael Moore's latest film, Planet of the Humans (directed and narrated by Jeff Gibbs), in which she began by admitting that she hadn't seen the film yet. When writers take that approach, you know there's already blood in the water. (She has since watched the film and written an actual review. Full disclosure: I'm in the film, included as one of the "good guys." But I don't intend to let that fact distort my comments in this review.)
The film is controversial because it makes two big claims: first, that renewable energy is a sham; second, that big environmental organizations—by promoting solar and wind power—have sold their souls to billionaire investors.
I feel fairly confident commenting on the first of these claims, regarding renewable energy, having spent a year working with David Fridley of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to assess the prospects for a complete transition to solar and wind power.
We found that the transition to renewables is going far too slowly to make much of a difference during the crucial next couple of decades, and would be gobsmackingly expensive if we were to try replacing all fossil fuel use with solar and wind. We also found, as the film underscores again and again, that the intermittency of sunshine and wind is a real problem—one that can only be solved with energy storage (batteries, pumped hydro, or compressed air, all of which are costly in money and energy terms); or with source redundancy (building way more generation capacity than you're likely to need at any one time, and connecting far-flung generators on a super-grid); or demand management (which entails adapting our behavior to using energy only when it's available). All three strategies involve trade-offs. In the energy world, there is no free lunch. Further, the ways we use energy today are mostly adapted to the unique characteristics of fossil fuels, so a full transition to renewables will require the replacement of an extraordinary amount of infrastructure in our food system, manufacturing, building heating, the construction industry, and on and on. Altogether, the only realistic way to make the transition in industrial countries like the US is to begin reducing overall energy usage substantially, eventually running the economy on a quarter, a fifth, or maybe even a tenth of current energy.
Is it true that mainstream enviros have oversold renewables? Yes. They have portrayed the transition away from fossil fuels as mostly a political problem; the implication in many of their communications is that, if we somehow come up with the money and the political will, we can replace oil with solar and continue living much as we do today, though with a clear climate conscience. That's an illusion that deserves shattering.
But the film does make some silly mistakes. Gibbs claims that a solar panel will generate less energy than it took to build the panel. That's a misleading claim. Many teams of researchers have addressed the question of energy return on energy invested for solar power, and even the most pessimistic results (with which I mostly agree) say that the technology can yield a marginal energy gain. Much of that gain goes away if we have to "pay" for the energy investment entailed in providing batteries or redundant capacity. Wind power generally has a better energy payback than solar, but the location of turbines matters a great deal and ideal sites are limited in number. Assessing solar and wind power calls for complicated energy accounting, but the film reduces that complexity to a blanket, binary dismissal.
The film is low on nuance, but our global climate and energy dilemma is all shades of gray. Gibbs seems to say that renewables are a complete waste of time. I would say, they are best seen as a marginal transitional strategy for industrial societies. Given climate change and the fact that fossil fuels are depleting, finite resources, it appears that if we want to maintain any sort of electrical energy infrastructure in the future, it will have to be powered by renewables—hydro, wind, or solar. As many studies have confirmed, the nuclear power industry has little realistic prospect of revival. The future will be renewable; there simply isn't any other option. What is very much in question, however, is the kind of society renewable energy can support.
The fact is that we've already bet our entire future on electricity and electronics. Communications and information processing and storage have all been digitized. That means that if the grid goes down, we've lost civilization altogether. I don't think we can maintain global grids at current scale without fossil fuels, but I can envision the possibility of a process of triage whereby, as population and resource consumption shrink, the digital world does as well, until it's small enough to be powered by renewable electricity that can be generated with minimal and acceptable environmental damage.
I agree with Gibbs, however, that renewables are realistically incapable of maintaining our current levels of energy usage, especially in rich countries like the US. Transitioning to electric cars may be a useful small-scale and short-term strategy for reducing oil consumption (I drive one myself), but limits to lithium and other raw materials used in building e-cars mean we really need to think about how to get rid of personal cars altogether.
Mainstream enviros will hate this movie because it exposes some of their real failings. By focusing on techno-fixes, they have sidelined nearly all discussion of overpopulation and overconsumption. Maybe that's understandable as a marketing strategy, but it's a mistake to let marketing consultants sort truth from fiction for us.
During recent decades, the big environmental orgs wearied of telling their followers to reduce, reuse, and recycle. They came to see that global problems like climate change require systemic solutions that, in turn, require massive investment and governmental planning and oversight.
But the reality is, we need both high-level systemic change and widespread individual behavior change. That's one of the lessons of the coronavirus pandemic: "flattening the curve" demands both central planning and leadership, and individual sacrifice.
Planet of the Humans paints environmental organizations and leaders with a broad and accusatory brush. One target is Jeremy Grantham, a billionaire investment analyst who created the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment in 1997. Grantham was already a mega-rich investor before he "got religion" on environmental issues. I've had several face-to-face meetings with him (full disclosure: the Grantham Foundation has provided modest funding to Post Carbon Institute, where I work) and it's clear that he cares deeply about overpopulation and overconsumption, and he understands that economic growth is killing the planet. He's scared for his children and grandchildren, and he genuinely wants to use whatever wealth and influence he has to change the world. To imply, as the film does, that he merely sees green tech as an investment strategy is a poorly aimed cheap shot. Bill McKibben, who is skewered even more savagely, also deserves better; he has replied to the film here.
Finally, the film leaves viewers with no sense of hope for the future. I understand why Gibbs made that choice. Too often, "hopium" is simply a drug we use to numb ourselves to the horrific reality of our situation and its causes—in which we are all complicit.
Yet, however awful the circumstance, we need a sense of human agency. In the face of the pandemic, many of us are reduced to sitting at home sewing facemasks; it seems like a paltry response to a spreading sickness that's taking tens of thousands of lives, but it's better than sitting on our hands and saying "Woe is me." The same goes for climate change: figuring out how to eat lower on the food chain, or how to get by without a car, or how to reduce home energy usage by half, or growing a garden might seem like trivial responses to such an overwhelming crisis, but they get us moving together in the right direction.
For all the reasons I've mentioned, Planet of the Humans is not the last word on our human predicament. Still, it starts a conversation we need to have, and it's a film that deserves to be seen.
Picture credit: Rumble Media via Hollywood Reporter
Editorial note: This article has been revised to change the description of Emily Atkin's initial piece about the film from "review" to "reaction" and remove an erroneous assumption that she didn't intend not to watch the film.
Lloyd Marbet
Robert Bolman, Much Ado About the Laws of Physics
There's much controversy presently about the new film, Planet of the Humans - Produced by Michael Moore and directed by Jeff Gibbs. The film argues that solar and wind are poorly suited to replace fossil fuels and that various major environmental organizations are beholden to corporate sponsors. No doubt the film played fast and loose with some facts, but regretfully, the film makers neglected to present much more information to make their point about renewable energy.
All the solar panels and wind turbines on Earth will not produce one thimble full of gasoline, diesel fuel, coal or natural gas. The important thing is to understand the difference between electricity (whether it's generated by solar, wind, nuclear or coal) and the energy dense fossil fuels listed above.
Try pushing your car the distance you can drive it on one gallon of gasoline. A single gallon of gasoline is so compact and energy dense that you can put it in a red plastic can and saunter down the street with it and yet it contains the energy equivalent of a dozen slaves doing grueling, back breaking physical labor for a day or two. If gasoline went to $5 a gallon, countless indignant Americans would be outraged and yet they think nothing of paying $5 for a Starbucks beverage that will NOT make a 3000 Lb car roll for 20 miles.
We are very, VERY far from seeing solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars rolling off assembly lines powered entirely by solar panels and wind turbines. That would have to include mining, extraction and the various intensely thermal industrial processes we use to manufacture things. Ultimately, many plastic parts will have to be made using something other than fossil inputs. Oil, coal and natural gas are finite, non-renewals resources. They WILL eventually run out. The same is true of copper, lithium, nickel, etc. There's only so much of this stuff in the Earth's crust and the further we go, the more expensive and energy intensive it becomes to extract what's left.
Just the battery pack alone in one Tesla car results in 250 tons of mining waste from producing the lithium. All that mining and extraction is done with diesel fuel. Probably the majority of the intensely thermal industrial manufacturing process is powered by coal and natural gas. Shipping of raw materials to the factory is done using diesel. Distributing the finished product is done using diesel. Many of the plastic parts of a Tesla are made of oil. Presently, many electric cars around the country will be inevitably be charged using coal and natural gas generated electricity.
We've all seen photographs of steel mills, foundries and forges with huge red-hot pieces of metal and sparks flying. Those images represent STAGGERING amounts of fossil fuel energy. It is not at all clear how those various things are going to be done in a cost-effective way (or at all) using solar and wind generated electricity.
We would have to see a five-fold increase in the energy density of lithium ion batteries for there to be solar and wind generated electric aircraft flying 150 people and their luggage across oceans and continents.
When someone says they have the renewable energy solution to our problems, I'm all ears. But it's not intellectually honest to pluck electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines out of a long story of pollution & fossil fuel use and claim to have an answer. Regretfully, given where we're at, meaningfully addressing Climate Change will have to focus more on dramatically downsizing our lifestyles with a stiff tax on fossil fuels than on expecting things to remain the same except with Teslas instead of Fords.
Which brings us to corporate underwriting of the major environmental organizations. I have no doubt that Bill McKibben is a very nice guy with the best of intentions. No doubt various high profile environmental organizations have made serious achievements shutting down coal plants and promoting renewables. But conspicuously absent is widespread discussion of consuming less, simplifying our lifestyles, limiting our population or more to the point, critiquing consumerist capitalism.
Population control has been a taboo topic in the environmental movement for decades. Parenthood is viewed as a fundamental human right. But on a finite planet growth is unsustainable. Period. If we don't manage our numbers, nature will do it for us and it won't be pretty. Nature and the laws of physics don't care about your fundamental human rights.
Population scientists point out that world population growth IS slowing and will soon level off and perhaps even begin declining so we no longer need to worry about it. But what they neglect to address is that before world population reduces to a more manageable size, the fossil fuels and other resources responsible for ballooning us past seven billion will peak and decline. So a population crash could result more from a collapsing resource base than an ever-burgeoning population. Same outcome from a different variable in the equation.
What is commonly called sustainability isn't really sustainable. When looked at through the lens of a more rigorous set of criteria you discover that genuine, meaningful sustainability is a dauntingly complex, far flung ideal. It's gonna be really difficult to achieve. But the good news is that we WILL achieve it because we have no choice in the matter. Sustainability is not optional. Whatever we don't do voluntarily, we WILL do involuntarily. I believe that it is possible to create a sustainable advanced technological civilization or.... dust blowing on the wind is sustainable. I vote for the former, but it's going to require some major concessions starting with being honest enough to face the constraints coming toward us.