So, three posts in two days on Michael Moore’s Planet of the Humans is roughly three posts more than this atrocious mockumentary merited when we should be focusing on solutions and opportunities rather than engaging in constant defensive struggles against fossil-foolish truthiness and deceit. Sigh … In any event, this guest post below adds background and context to the two previous posts (here and here) on this.
Planet Of The Humans Is
Moore Trouble Than It’s Worth
(A Non-Review)
Last August, the AP published a story about the premiere of Michael Moore’s latest documentary at Michael Moore’s Traverse City film festival, which he tweeted out jokingly as his “August surprise.” Titled “Planet of the Humans,” it reportedly took a critical look at clean energy and the environmental movement, which is probably why Breitbart quickly posted the story. This was the first, of many, red flags indicating that this would ultimately be an unhelpful waste of time.
At the time the movie had yet to be picked up for distribution, meaning that Moore couldn’t find anyone who would pay to actually put the movie in theaters. Given that Moore has a pretty good track record of successful documentaries, the fact that no one, not even Netflix or Amazon, wanted this one was another big red flag.
While we noticed deniers kicking it around then, we didn’t mention it here, because any attention to it could have been used by Moore as evidence that it’s controversial, and therefore worthy of a wide release.
Moore never did find that distributor, but instead took his apparently poorly-researched and highly misleading video to a no-barrier-to-entry venue rife with poorly-researched and highly misleading videos: YouTube. Despite the fact that the movie premiered at his own film festival back in August, Moore’s tweet announcing it this week also called it a surprise, and described it as “a brand new feature film, right now, just finished and just posted minutes ago” to YouTube. We’re happy to grant that “time” does feel like a flat circle these days, but Moore promoting his eight-month-old film as having “just finished” is another red flag that he may not be operating entirely in good faith.
With an Earth Day release, Moore was clever to capitalize on the hunger for contrarian takes, and sure enough, deniers ate it up.
James Delingpole, king of racist, overtly sexist and just plain stupid or dishonest takes, declared Moore his “new hero,” while his employer, white supremacy central Breitbart, lauded the movie. Steve Milloy took a break from attacking Greta and journalists and erasing indigenous identities to tweet his “fav clip” of the movie, claiming it “proves Milloy’s Law [that] Green = Fraud,” and telling his followers to watch it “for a takedown of Gore’s profiteering from the climate scam.” Climate Depot linked to multiple pieces in denier outlets. A veritable sea of red flags.
And sure enough, for every denier who praises the film, there are a handful of actual experts and even a prominent documentary maker who looked up to Moore being disappointed how “so brazenly anti-science, so deeply incorrect, so unvetted, negligent and untrue” it is. But of course that hasn’t stopped TV producers from booking him, and Moore’s been doing the rounds on comedy news and MSNBC.
To get to some of the core claims of the movie: sure, solar panels and wind turbines use resources like literally everything else in the universe, but are they cleaner than fossil fuels? Undoubtedly. Yes, there is sand in the desert, and no, no one has ever claimed that solar panels last forever. Is biomass a mixed bag? Absolutely, something that Climate Central did a great job of exploring — back in 2015. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff here, to say nothing of the borderline eugenics underlying the film’s problematic population control message.
And that really gets to the heart of the problem. As Emily Atkin put it in a characteristically perfect piece in HEATED, we are “tired of having to spend hours consuming and debunking messy-yet-blockbuster climate reporting from dudes who seemingly woke up a few mornings beforehand and decided they were climate journalists.”
Atkin calls this cycle “the wheel of first time climate dudes.” When a guy who hasn’t done any climate journalism “decides he’s going to be the one to do a Big Climate Journalism Moment,” but “because neither the author nor editor has not done much climate journalism before… [it] suffers from factual inaccuracies and misleading tropes.” Then, those who have spent time on the subject need to go back and clean up the mess.
And that’s almost what appears to have happened, except for the fact that Moore’s film wasn’t a blockbuster. He couldn’t even find a distributor.
What’s true about Moore’s movie is that energy is complicated. These are issues policymakers and advocates have been wrestling with for years, and actual environmental journalists are well aware of and accurately report on. The rest is just recycled climate denial and energy industry talking points that seem clever if you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Which is probably why no companies wanted to distribute it in the first place.
11 responses so far ↓
1 John Egan // Apr 24, 2020 at 3:25 pm
Censorship is a wonderful thing, ain’t it?
BTW – After the coronavirus lockdown, I can assure you that climate activism will be passe.
If XR kiddies try to stop a Tube train in East London once people can go back to work or if pipeline protesters block transcontinental railroads – – they’ll just be run over to the cheers of people trying to earn a day’s wages or deliver lumber to Toronto.
2 John Egan // Apr 24, 2020 at 3:29 pm
PS – Give me an effin’ break. Solar power in Michigan? Have you ever lived in Michigan?? The sun doesn’t shine for 6 months of the year.
The only reasons to install solar power are for tax breaks or for greenwash.
3 Shane // Apr 24, 2020 at 4:24 pm
“The rest is just recycled climate denial”. I didn’t get that feel from the documentary at all. It does highlight however that where’s there’s money to be made there are agenda’s, propaganda and snakes in suits! Achieving green, clean energy causes as much damage to the environment as anything else but for those who seek to profit the most it is not considered, nor cared about. I think the author of this article is afraid that the messages emanating from the documentary will gain some traction with lay folk.
4 Richard Mercer // Apr 24, 2020 at 7:22 pm
where it says “two previous posts (here and here)” the second here link isn’t working. I was able to use the one on the upper right margin though, under Recent Posts
5 Richard Mercer // Apr 24, 2020 at 7:27 pm
John Egan @2
Solar works in Alaska, Vermont etc.
In fact Vermont is about to go for a major solar, wind and energy storage plan.
Coal-Killing Long-Duration Energy Storage For Vermont (Vermont?!?)
“The basic idea is to use excess renewable energy to run a system that super-cools air down to a liquid state. It can sit there in a tank for days or even weeks until needed, then you simply warm it up. As the air heats up it expands. That provides the means to run a turbine, and there’s your renewable electricity-on-demand at any time of day or night.”
“Highview Power’s cryogenic energy storage system is equivalent in performance to, and could potentially replace, a fossil fuel power station. Highview Power’s systems can enable renewable energy baseload power at large scale, while also supporting electricity and distribution systems and providing energy security.” ……….
“If the 2010s were the decade when coal died (spoiler alert: it was), the the 2020s will be the decade when natural gas loses its grip on the US power generation sector.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/12/22/coal-killing-long-duration-energy-storage-for-vermont-vermont/
——–
6 Richard Mercer // Apr 24, 2020 at 7:32 pm
Solar and wind are not cheaper than fossil fueled electricity in 60 countries in the world
This is not going away. Coal is a losing proposition, the market phasing it out.
Coal Power Is Bleeding Cold, Hard Cash (Thank You, Captain Obvious)
“Now that the cost of renewable energy has dropped, wind and solar have begun to chip away at both coal and natural gas. It’s only going to get worse. One major warning sign is the growing interest in renewables on the part of the nation’s powerful rural electric cooperative stakeholders.
Another area of concern — to fossil fuel fans, that is — is the emergence of hybrid wind, solar, and energy storage power plants and other technology improvements.
Then there’s that whole thing about local public health risks, impacts on local economic growth, and water resource impacts related to coal and natural gas but who’s counting?
No, Really: Coal Power Is Uneconomical”
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/10/31/coal-power-is-bleeding-cold-hard-cash-thank-you-captain-obvious/
No, Really: Coal Power Is Uneconomical
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/10/31/coal-power-is-bleeding-cold-hard-cash-thank-you-captain-obvious/
7 Richard Mercer // Apr 24, 2020 at 7:35 pm
“The average share of electricity generated from coal in the US has dropped from 52.8% in 1997 to 27.4% in 2018.
Coal power in the United States accounted for 39% of the country’s electricity production at utility-scale facilities in 2014, 33% in 2015, 30.4% in 2016 and 27.4% in 2018”
Wikipedia
It’s expected to fall to 23% within the next year
8 John Egan // Apr 25, 2020 at 11:00 am
No, the broken records are the climate activists who use character assassination and censorship to preclude any dissent. Regardless of the science, I lost interest in the climate movement when people started saying, “The discussion is over.” Combined with attacks on academics who failed to get onboard and those who suggested that democracy was, perhaps, a poor vehicle for climate action, I saw the most extreme case of WCTU-ism in history. True believers who think the ends justify whatever means always bring suffering upon humanity – not to mention failure.
BTW – How’s your cycling coming? I’ve probably cycled 200,000 miles in my lifetime – in places like Wyoming with snow and below-zero temps. You may not think that I talk the talk, but I walk (or in this case ride) the walk.
9 Richard Mercer // Apr 29, 2020 at 1:37 am
Scientists NEVER said the discussion is over.
That humans are causing global warming however, is as good as indisputable. Only fossil fools think there is any real question about that.
The world is warming at least 10 times as fast as when it came out of the last ice age (glacial period).
It took about 11,000 years to warm by 5 C. That averages 2,200 years for each 1 C warming.
Global average temperature has increased by 1 C in the last 140 years. Do the simple arithmetic. I got 16 times faster now.
That’s because we are increasing CO2 at least 100 times faster than the very fastest nature did in the last 450,000 years, and quite likely EVER.
Humans increased CO2 by over 80ppm in 60 years
Humans increased CO2 by 130ppm in 140 years
——
Nature caused CO2 increases over the last 450,000 years, from ice core data
80ppm increase — took 50,000 years
110ppm increase — 25,000 years
120ppm increase — 20,000 years
60ppm increase — 20,000 years
90ppm increase — 15,000 years
100ppm increase — 24,800 years
The numbers for 800,000 years would be similar, based on a graph, from ice core data going back that far.
I’m sure you’ll respond with the usual denier lies and misrepresentation of the science.
10 Richard Mercer // Apr 29, 2020 at 1:41 am
The scientific consensus about AGW is a consensus of EVIDENCE, from which scientists form their opinions. Like the following
Between 1991-2012 there were 13,950 peer reviewed research papers published.
24 of them reject AGW.
Of the 33,690 scientists who contributed to the 13,950 papers, only 34 reject AGW – That’s 1/10 of 1%
—–
In the one year + from November 12, 2012 through December 31, 2013, –
there were 2,225 peer reviewed papers published by 9,136 contributing scientists.
Only ONE of those 9,136 rejects AGW – That’s just over 1/100 of 1%
—–
11 Richard Mercer // Apr 29, 2020 at 1:46 am
Character assassination? You mean calling out the industry funded shills and pointing out how they dis-inform people?
Or is it deniers demonizing Michael Mann, whose work is arguably the most validated piece of work in climate science, sending him and his family death threats, etc.