LOS ANGELES (AP) — What if alternative energy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? That’s the provocative question explored in the documentary Planet of the Humans, which is backed and promoted by filmmaker Michael Moore and directed by one of his longtime collaborators. It premiered last week at his Traverse City Film Festival.
The film, which does not yet have distribution, is a low-budget but piercing examination of what the filmmakers say are the false promises of the environmental movement and why we’re still “addicted” to fossil fuels. Director Jeff Gibbs takes on electric cars, solar panels, windmills, biomass, biofuel, leading environmentalist groups like the Sierra Club, and even figures from Al Gore and Van Jones, who served as Barack Obama’s special adviser for green jobs, to 350.org leader Bill McKibben, a leading environmentalist and advocate for grassroots climate change movements.
Gibbs, who produced Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, didn’t set out to take on the environmental movement. He said he wanted to know why things weren’t getting better. But when he started pulling on the thread, he and Moore said they were shocked to find how inextricably entangled alternative energy is with coal and natural gas, since they say everything from wind turbines to electric car charging stations are tethered to the grid, and even how two of the Koch brothers — Charles and David — are tied to solar panel production through their glass production business.
“It turned out the wakeup call was about our own side,” Gibbs said in a phone interview. “It was kind of crushing to discover that the things I believed in weren’t real, first of all, and then to discover not only are the solar panels and wind turbines not going to save us … but (also) that there is this whole dark side of the corporate money … It dawned on me that these technologies were just another profit center.”
Both know the film is going to be a “tough pill to swallow.” It was a difficult eye-opener for them as well.
“We all want to feel good about something like the electric car, but in the back of your head somewhere you’ve thought, ’Yeah, but where is the electricity coming from? And it’s like, ‘I don’t want to think about that, I’m glad we have electric cars,’” Moore said. “I’ve passed by the windmill farms, and oh it’s so beautiful to see them going, and don’t tell me that we’ve gone too far now and it isn’t going to save us … Well, my feeling is just hit me with everything. I’m like let’s just deal with it now, all at once.”
It’s part of the reason why they had to make it independently. Gibbs said he tried for years to get an environmental group on board to help offset the costs, only to be turned down at every door. He was further disheartened when, in the film, he approaches people like Jones, McKibben and a local Sierra Club leader, and asks them about their stance on biofuel and biomass. Biomass, like wood and garbage, can be used to produce heat and is considered a renewable source of energy. It can also be converted to gas or liquid biofuels that can be burned for energy.
He finds every one ill-prepared to comment on their stance about the biomass process, which the documentary says requires cutting down enormous numbers of trees to produce the woodchips that are converted into energy. Neither Jones nor McKibben responded to request for comment from The Associated Press.
“I like so many people in the film and I’m one of those people who wanted to believe all of these years that that was the right path,” Moore said. ”(But) I refuse to let us die out. I refuse to let this planet die.”
They were even nervous to show it to the festival crowd, where they expected maybe a “50-50 response.” Instead, they got a standing ovation. And there were even members of The Sierra Club there.
HT/Willie Soon
The next question he should ask himself is “If they are pushing this useless ‘solution’, is the Climate Crisis real?”
I heard someone say Michael Moore has more Chins than a Chinese phone book. I was going to post it here, but since it is “culturally insensitive,” I won’t post it….oh, wait!!…..
Go away.
Heh, he’s so anti-gun he hires armed private security.
===========================================
Far away. Mods? These are nothing but ad hom attacks disguised as “jokes”.
So truth can sucker slap even the most willfully oblivious.
Funny thing that,reality does not care that you avoid it.
but sooner or later you learn to care.
Gibbs and Moore may be finally growing up,becoming realists and doubting their own knee jerk emotional reactions.
Does happen,for pain and anguish caused by emoting instead of reasoning can truly roil your life.
Even a less than objective dig into so many of our government subsidized fads,reveals madness,destruction and tremendous waste.
Government bureaus cannot do what they claim,they create nought but chaos through order.
Alternate energy is a revelation of the interface between,delusion,virtue signalling,state theft and stealing from the state.
Take a stupid,faulty premise,add bureaus and faith….proceed to poverty.
When unobtainium is freely available society will be so much richer, free unicorn in every stable….
Magical thinking,wishful reasoning and wilful ignoring of reality are traits that human society has fought against for all of civilization, almost as if logic and rational thought are alien to our species.
But history indicates that every time we have created comfortable living conditions for ourselves,we then let our guard down and the madness sweeps our comforts away.
Almost like natural cycles.
So just maybe Moore’s trials and tribulations have gifted him a clue.
Society is not “improved” by deceit?
Not even the most “well intentioned socialist deceit”.
I want to see this documentary. Micheal Moore has no attraction in this household but we know that even he can have some good points to be considered:
From a place far, far away up a distant canyon in WA is our home. There are no utilities of any flavor except satellite connections, if that is considered a utility. We do get 1 bar of a 1x cell connection which can be used for a text, sigh…. And we could hire the PUD to install poles/wire for 1.75 miles of canyon and trees for a measly $250k. No thanks.
This is a prime case study for solar as there ARE no reasonable alternatives. We installed a 3kW system with a lead acid battery bank for low light conditions. Subsidies or not we would’ve installed our system anyway. We live here because we can as two retired and disabled folks raising a few sheep, goats, pigs, geese, etc. There would be no use for this beautiful land except for a weekend “roughing it” camping trip except for solar. But we don’t rough it as we enjoy most of the same luxuries a city/urban/connected home wound have except there is no A/C or blow driers around this house. We don’t save any money vs the grid due to battery retirement and replacement and, gasp, generator fuel to recharge the batteries when there is no or inadequate sunlight Oct through Feb each year.
Many solar installs, to me, don’t pass the sniff test. First, without the incentive/rebate they wouldn’t do it. Second, it may offset the power bill as the main priority but it doesn’t help if the utility provider has a fault. Third, the thought is that its “green” but I’m not too sure of that. It may be green to the owner not not the neighbor of the manufacturers of the equipment or the dumps at end-of-life. Fourth, for those that are grid connected it creates a major headache in load balancing for the utility provider and offsets revenues needed for line maintenance, repair, etc.
As said before this is a really complex matrix and is politically and emotionally charged. But sure thankful for the technology.
Add in EVs, windmills, etc. Its a crazy matrix. I love hydro-electric but that is politically charged. Also geothermal if available but hard to scale for a large output.
But surely the frighteningly logical next step, if windmills and electric cars will not save the planet, is to ban the use of fossil fuels for any purpose whatsoever.
Climate change is only really a left-right issue in USA. On this side of Atlantic both sides spout warmist palather. For instance, Goldilocks, the new English PM (I won’t insult Scots by calling him British thinks combating climate change and Brexit are both good ideas while anyone with a working frontal lobe will see both as daft.
The brother of UK labour party leader is a prominent sceptic.
It is very positive that someone like Michael Moore sees alternative energy as a scam and an environmentally damaging one at that.
This is exactly how to tackle this issue. Take the divisive left right issues out of it. Stop tackling the man instead of the ball
In reality both sides support CAGW in the US too. There’s talk on the right that CAGW is BS but when the rubber hits the road at vote time and awful lot of righties vote left. This is actually a big part of what led to Trump winning the election. For to many years the right as been talking the talk but their votes don’t back up their mouths so people voted in a non politician to see if that made a difference. Matter of fact the left has the same problem, Obama won on a hope and change message but unlike Trump he left his voters in the lurch like politicians tend to do.
I don’t see this an an epiphany for MM but more of a bump in the road….. for now. But once you start peeling back that onion of doubt it’s hard to stop.
I intend to see the movie.
But in reading the descriptions of it, it seems that Moore is learning to be critical.
It could be the early stage of a tidal change.
Michael Moore doesn’t create documentaries any more than Al Gore creates documentaries. Neither one of them have ever created a documentary. What they create are partisan and political propaganda pieces. That’s it. There’s nothing else to call them.
Maybe this will be the Looney Lefty crockumentarians’ first real documentary.
If Michael Moore can work out that there’s something wrong with renewables then there is hope for the planet. We need someone significant from the green/left to break ranks. If that person is Michael Moore then that’s fine by me.
It has already happened once, it was the other “Mr Moore”, the co founder of Greenpeace.
It mad elittle difference.
The western world is a strange place. The forces of evil managed to character-assassinate Patrick Moore, but I’ve a feeling that Michael Moore will be a lot more difficult for them. OK, they may succeed again, but there will be another … and eventually the dam will crack. Alternatively, if the privately-owned media work out that they can increase profits with a change in narrative, they will do just that. Won’t they?
The Green character destroyers can always turn to their favourite instrument of torture, to persuade the luvvies and the film industry to stay on the Green path. They can start circulating stories about casting couch activities, and see what sticks. Michael Moore will not be spared once they have decided he has to be silenced.
“If Michael Moore can work out that there’s something wrong with renewables ”
Then why can’t the Elites do the same? Answer: Some of them are clueless, and some of them are in on the scam.
Looks like he’s still a diehard believer in the bad “science” of CAGW and that the planet needs saving. It’s good that his eyes have been opened to the solar and wind renewable farce, but his takeaway of “we’re just not doing it right” is still wrong.
My regard for Michael Moore has gone up sky high. It does indicate a degree of honesty not usually detectable in an unquestioning and immovable left that receives its wisdom, opinions and thoughts from their “betters” instead of developing them themselves. An honest and analytical lefty I can talk to (oh how I have tried to little effect with many).
I don’t think ‘Deplorables’ are in anyway more tuned in to analytical pathways to their thoughts and opinions. However, they have a short cut to the truth. From experience they have learned to be wary and sceptical of big plans that government has for their wellbeing and their futures.
I can see that the understanding by important lefties that something is gravely wrong with renewables as a solution to the CO2 “problem” is a loose thread to pull on to open minds further to the even greater deflection of “dangerous” climate change by powerful interests that serve the rent seekers in the renewable sector, and even more insidious global politico planners.
I believe Michael Schellenberger from the alarmist camp opened this well guarded secret gateway on renewables that Michael Moore stumbled upon. It makes sense that honest thinkers on the left are actually the key to bringing this whole sinister (and sinistral) house down.
Quite so, Gary. He’s indeed following in the footsteps of Michael Shellenberger and Patrick Moore and Bjorn Lomborg and Stewart Brand and Hugh Montefiore. All had started their intellectual life as strident Black vs. White types and all moderated later in life as the complexities of the issues became clear. He still accepts global warming as an existential issue, as does Shellenberger. It will be interesting to see if he goes the way of Shellenberger that nuclear is the only way out of the mind-trap that is renewable energy – wind and solar.
Nice of them to discover what every thinking person already figured out.
I’m an enthusiastic Moore-basher… have been for a very long time. I dislike AND despise the man, his work as well as his politics. if, however, “Planet of the Humans” factually and accurately demonstrates the folly & unworkability of “Green Energy” and results in educating (at least some) staunch Green Dreamers into a more realistic view of our modern world’s energy needs, then — as much as I can’t believe I’m saying this — kudos to Moore.
Now I feel dirty.
Need a shower. 😉
Wonderful. An epiphany for Moore!
Maybe he’ll do an Emperor’s New Clothes rebooted.
If you don’t look at the big, holistic picture (of your brave new electric world), you will miss some very important things. Not the least of which is the utter lack of sustainability. And the farce which is “CO2 neutrality”; and the belief that any of this will save the climate.
But Moore had better watch his backside. Gibbs too.
“Not the least of which is the utter lack of sustainability. ”
Ironic, given that this word is a mantra for the whole AGW/Green movement.
Green energy will hurt the middle class the most. Moore, although a leftist has generally sided with middle class. His solutions I do not agree with but I agree with goal of protecting the middle class.
What will save the climate change that we are seeing? Will it be “fixed” when the north/south flip happens, or when the earths magnetic field gets back up to strength? Clearly world governments don’t care about CO2, or the methane from animal agriculture, and we all know that EV’s or wind towers won’t fix anything…
I hope that this revelation is significant in helping sway public opinion. There is nothing more entertaining than seeing the left respond when one of their own expresses views that contradict there own. Whilst the response to Patrick Moore was to try to expunge him from history the response to Michael Moore will be moore difficult. I can see heads explode as they try to prevent the inconvenient facts about renewables from the becoming public. Piercing the global warmists bubble is very difficult for sceptics but is more effective if done from the inside. Whilst I get some encouragement how we have progressed the fight against this warmest cult but I have been surprised at how few whistleblowers have been coming forward. Occasionally you hear a story about ex NASA employees or other insiders going rogue but the stories always seem to get buried quickly especially by the mainstream media.
Reading a JoNova blog on mismanagement and misrepresentation of weather data from the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia and clear evidence of corruption it staggers me that there isn’t an insider ( or disgruntled employee) in the know to spill the beans. If one multiplies the corruption at the Bureau a multitude of times around the world it is inevitable that whistleblowers will come through. I think that the process would be hastened if governments conducted audits on some of these institutions and prosecuted people for the clear manipulation of data. At least that would provide an incentive for people to spill the beans. As it stands with no effort by governments to investigate these issues there is a disincentive to speak out as the warmists are very quick to publicly shame, remove from employment, destroy careers of those that speak out.
Hopefully, this epiphany of Michael Moore is just a small step to changing public sentiment
I had to laugh when I saw this article – Michael Moore is blowing the whistle on the green energy scam. Who’da thunk?
Maybe because the movie allegedly supports my belief that wind and solar are a boondoggle, I have to give creds to Michael Moore. Of course, those creds will go away when his next film is at odds with my beliefs.
I would like to see this in wider distribution, and watch the exploding heads in the theater.
It is refreshing and promising to see Michael Moore tackling one of the great frauds of our era instead of doing simply more Left Wing ranting about CO2 and ‘global warming’. He seems to have noticed that ‘green energy’ is just a big scam. This could attract the attention of leftist groupthink to what is the real problem at present.
Michael Moore speaks truth about once a decade.
….(edited) !
[Language. Mod]
Oops, sorry Mod ! I was in shock….lol
He said quite a few truths within this video. I wonder if he will ever realize that climate change is a trillion dollar industry or that socialism always devolves into dictatorship.
I wonder if he’ll ever be remorseful about anything. Physics doesn’t give a damn about leftism.
This video is of course a edited version of what Moore said.
And it cuts off just before he got to the part where he launches into his “everyone who voted for Trump is a dupe” rant.
He’s right, but doesn’t personally feel good about it.
The difference between him and Hillary is that he actually knows some deplorables and has listened to them.
Nah, skeptics will be skeptics, and I am a skeptic. He just about doubled his audience size with this one press release.
The far left has been baiting the public with the promise of renewable energy and now they’re getting Michael Moore to switch the renewable energy bait with the de-industrialization plan. The elites of the far left have a hatred for the middle class, and they long for the day when all of the working middle class “rednecks” in fly-over country with their fancy double-wide trailers and pick-up trucks are forced into a life of serfdom under the threat of climate change (“How dare the peasants not live in poverty”!!!). That’s also why the left hates nuclear power. It takes away their excuse for imposing their authoritarian socialist policies on the masses. They would rather risk the destruction of the environment than accept any solution to the issue of CO2 emissions that doesn’t involve re-engineering all of society to their liking.
I have seen this “demonstration” posted a number of times as “evidence” that adding CO2 to the atmosphere and then exposing it to a heat source causes the temperature in the bottle with the CO2 to rise more than the one without added CO2, thus “validating” the current AGW theory. Would anyone like to explain what is really going on?
Greenhouse Gas Demo
https://youtu.be/kwtt51gvaJQ
A controlled experiment using measured amounts of CO2 shows just the opposite.
The CO2 Bomb
https://sciencefrauds.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-co2-bomb.html
Another controlled experiment also shows just the opposite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgjT_665T6U&t=109s
Below are two photographs demonstrating the effects of an exposed light filament where exposed to a vacuum( left) and in a pure CO2 environment (right). As can be seen, the filament exposed only to CO2 is dimmer and cooler, showing that CO2 causes COOLING, not heating, of the air around it.
Well, I found the answer on a Green Education site warning about using PHONY demonstrations.
http://climatechangeeducation.org/hands-on/difficulties/heating_greenhouse_gases/problem_examples/clean/index.html
Avoiding Flawed, Problem Science Demonstrations — Greenhouse Effect in a Bottle; Heating Carbon Dioxide vs. Air;
Let’s be sure the demonstrations we recommend to fellow educators are authentic and get the science right!
Example of getting on the cold fusion demo bandwagon, claims way out of sync of NOAA’s own science:
CLEAN Promoted Greenhouse Gas in a Bottle Demonstration
I would have to be considered to be a right winger in my thinking, but that does not, or rather should not make me think that all of the Lefts ideas are wrong, and that all of the rights are right.
Yes Mike Moore’s thinking is clearly left wing, but that does not mean that all of what he says is automatically wrong.
I her the words “”Anti American”” used far too often. Why not say that he Michael has ideas that are disliked by those on the right.
Its been obvious for a long time that the whole of the myth of the so called Global warming come climate change is a mix of those who want a world government , i.e. Communism, and those who truly are concerned about things that they think are a problem.
We should be more concerned as to why they think like that, which gets us back to leftist ideas from the Media and academia.
His exposure of the falsehoods coming from such sources is good, for
example the electric cars. Yes they do seem to be a good idea until one asks such questions as to where is the electricity coming from.
Another example of something which needs to be exposed is the fact that all renewable need a “”Back Up”” power supply. So how many people realise that we have a double power supply system, the pretend Green one the renewable, plus the older fusel fuel one.
If such a farce was exposed and people realised that they are paying
double for their electricity, thy would be so angry that it would be ended. Tell them that less CO2 from Windmills is more than made up for by burning the back up fossil fuel generation.
Not that there is there anything wrong with the gas CO2 in the first place, that is still the key card in the whole of the House of Cards myth.
We need Propaganda, not the NAZI variety, bit for the Truth, and if
Michael Moore can help, then good on you Michael.
MJE VK5ELL