Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In the wake of harsh allegations of green corporate greed made in the documentary “Planet of the Humans”, who will Greens sacrifice to restore public confidence?
Bill McKibben and the Sierra Club appear to be the leading contenders. Both were strongly criticised in “Planet of the Humans”, but so far McKibben seems to be pulling ahead in the public relations race; he appears to have more friends.
Published on Tuesday, April 28, 2020
by Common DreamsMobilizing Climate Action in the Face of Planet of the Humans
Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs’s new film is so full of weak analysis, misinformation, and misplaced invective that I worry it will cause more harm than good.
by Cynthia KaufmanWe are in a climate emergency. That means we all need to do everything we can to get the world to stop burning fossil fuels and chopping down trees. And we need to do it as quickly as possible. Getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will take everything we have.
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A film that really took that on, with enough credibility for its claims to be believed, would be helpful. But given how untrustworthy the film is, I have no idea if the Sierra Club compromised its principles in the investment companies it promotes. I know that its Beyond Coal Campaign was enormously successful, and that, as much as I dislike Michael Bloomberg, he played a very positive role in it. I’m not a fan of the corporation Caterpillar. But the fact that its bulldozers were used against protesters at Standing Rock doesn’t make me against bulldozers. And it does not make me criticize the Sierra Club for being associated with investments in Caterpillar.
To me the most misplaced invective is the treatment given to Bill McKibben. He comes across in the film as dishonest and corrupt. And yet he has done more for the climate justice movement than almost anyone else in the world. For all I know he has made some mistakes in the past and backed some initiatives that turned out to not be good ideas. I have no idea. But the way he is presented in the film is pure propaganda. Look at the claims critically, even without having any outside information, and they all turn to smoke. Why Gibbs and Moore want to take down McKibben is a mystery to me.
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Read more: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/28/mobilizing-climate-action-face-planet-humans
Note I am not offering an opinion on whether Bill McKibben or the Sierra Club actually are corporate sellouts.
Bill McKibben gave a surprisingly poor performance in “Planet of the Humans”. When asked who pays his bills, he struggled to remember who his sponsors are, though he described Rockefeller as a “great ally in this”.
The full movie is well worth watching. The allegations of green corporate greed are very specific and well presented. Keep the remote handy so you can skip past the tedious climate emergency rhetoric.
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As Ms Kaufman wrote in her boxed article excerpt in the above WUWT article, ” . . . Bill McKibben. He comes across in the film as dishonest and corrupt. And yet he has done more for the climate justice movement than almost anyone else in the world.”
The word “yet” in that assertion is an obvious mistake . . . it logically should be not be there.
The useful idiots are about to serve their purpose.
Bill has been groomed as a scapegoat for years.
When the victims of fraud realize they have been had,they seek revenge.
I have noticed nearly all the original Climate Con,profiteers have moved on,while funding ideologues as their replacements.
The “Team” are such useful meat,they will be the people thrown to the mob,when the government agents are held responsible..
Government funded scientific research will be another.
Scapegoating is a wonderful sport for diverting lynch mobs.
We will one day look back and ask ourselves “what went wrong” or “how did we become so wrong.” So much work has been done to develop theoretical models posed to represent a hugely complex systems which are untestable in any realistic way, with any resemblance or meaning of real time. One reason – too much time on our hands that could be spent solve real world problems… like, e.g., future global virus pandemics.
Propaganda is begat of conflicting belief and of peoples’ determination to spread their own doctrines against all others. It is the antithesis of honest education and unbiased information. To be effective, propaganda needs the help of censorship. Within a arena of censored information, it can mobilize all means of communication – printed, spoken, artistic and visual – and press its claims to maximum advantage. The five basic rules of propaganda are:
1. The rule of simplification: reducing all data to a simple confrontation between ‘Good v. Bad’, ‘Friend v. Foe’.
2. The rule of disfiguration: discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies.
3. The rule of transfusion: manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one’s own ends.
4. The rule of unanimity: presenting one’s viewpoint as if it is the unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people; including drawing doubting individuals into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, social pressure and by ‘psychological contagion’ sometimes a.k.a. psy-ops.
5. The rule of orchestration (or repetition): endlessly repeating the same message over and over; in different variations and combinations.”
Ref. Norman Davis’ five basic rules of propaganda in “Europe – a History,” Oxford Press, 1996, pp 500-501)
In reply to:
We will one day look back and ask ourselves “what went wrong” or “how did we become so wrong.”
All the focus on a fake problem… and the fake problem created a real problem.
CAGW the issue created ‘Big Bother’ and somehow de-brained the Democrat party, enably it to be taken over by special interests and of course China is the most powerful special interest in the world.
The Trillions wasted on green stuff was sad.
Big Brother is an uncontrollable monster that gets more powerful with time. Big Brother wants to control what you see on the internet.
Big Brother is absolutely as dangerous as the Communist Party.
New technology has made Big Brother possible. China has face recognition for all citizens. Purchases are made with face recognition. China can and does track citizens to find any activity that is not in accordance with Big Brother.
China is using their communication system AI, to provide complete monitoring and control of their internet and voice communication via phone. The system continuous monitors all voice and digital communication to find any communication that is not in agreement with Big Brother.
Big Brother is a few steps away from controlling our internet.
We were so stupid and wealthy that we could waste trillions of dollars and damage our environment for almost no net benefit. Logic was on our side. It did not matter.
There has, however, been a paradigm change.
There is absolutely no money for CAGW or any other stupid program that is not essential to the restart and rebuilding of our economies and/or running essential services in our country.
re: “Big Brother is a few steps away from controlling our internet. ”
BB/AI ALREADY EMPLOYED on YT, FB, and in Google searches …
I thought the film was good, but really puzzled by the indictment of Caterpillar as a company because their bulldozers were used against protestors. Such an odd, seemingly indefensible indictment.
Leftist guilt by association, if someone gets shot its the gun maker’s fault.
Moore should have interviewed Hansen for this movie. We all know what’s his opinion on renewables.
Yes but Hansen would have said pro-nuclear things, and Moore’s movie steered very carefully around the nuclear elephant. The only brief mention of nuclear I recall was mildly disparaging.
Agreed.
And that’s not all as the massive fallacy of composition with rooftop solar is coming to a head with their iconic South Australian experiment to add to their woes-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/energy-operator-wants-to-remotely-switch-off-rooftop-solar-systems-amid-uncontrolled-growth/ar-BB13pbOi
How do you like Australia’s wind energy output in April? If you run your pointer over those wonderful peaks and troughs you’ll find the true believers have faith in a system that varies from 62.3% of installed capacity down to 1.3%. – https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2020/april
You have to ask yourself with so much resourcing thrown at educating so many in the history of mankind we can still have so much basic technical ignorance and stupidity. Who slapped you around the head Mr Moore?
Moore was right about renewables, just that he didn’t expand on it with some facts. From a small pdf I wrote on solar panels so to satisfy the following question. Are solar panels a reusable, and environmentally friendly source of energy with a low Greenhouse Gas footprint?
To manufacture a solar panel 1094.4 kWh/m2 of energy is consumed, this same panel if located in Manitoba/Ontario would produce 174 kWh/m2 per year. Therefore, a solar panel located there would have 6.3 years of energy pay-back time. However, to calculate the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) footprint the criteria is more complicated.
The GHG footprint for a solar panel is dependent on, 1 its location solar irradiance value, 2 its longevity or life span, and 3 importantly the source of electrical generation used by its manufacturing process. The accepted norm of 50g CO2-eq/kWh used for GHG footprint of solar panels is not applicable in Canada and is reliant on usage of clean power sources in its production.
Of the three major influences in a solar panel GHG footprint, the greatest is the source of electrical generation used in its manufacture. If nuclear or hydro power was used for this, a solar panel would have 1 to 10g CO2-eq/kWh GHG footprint. If coal was the primary source of power, the GHG footprint would be of over 300g CO2-eq/kWh. In this instance a solar panel installed in Manitoba/Ontario would have GHG pay-back period of over 170years, far beyond its life span.
Are solar panels a GHG friendly source of energy? Only if they are manufactured using energy with low GHG emissions, and used in locations of high GHG emissions attributed to the primary power source on the electrical grid.
CO2 is not a pollutant, it is an invented hobgoblin.
The reason to have as many nuclear plants and hydro dams as we need to produce all or most of our electric power, ought to be to conserve the supply of fossil fuels for other purposes and to keep the price of them low.
Even talking about GHG footprints is buying a large part of the mythology the warmistas have created out of thin air.
Oh I totally agree with you, CO2 is not a pollutant nor a problem. But the argument being sold to people is that renewables don’t put out any GHG’s and that is huge fallacy.
Cool, I just wanted to make that point.
The movie did effectively make the point, but only briefly, that solar and wind and biofuels mostly all use FF to make those things.
How bad is a coal mine compared to cutting down rainforests in Borneo for palm oil plantations?
The only people that seem oblivious to what is being done to fulfill biofuel mandates are the people who think they are doing the planet a favor by making such laws.
Although it does not make much sense to me to include burning trash as somehow equivalent to chopping down trees to burn for electricity, or to make palm oil plantations.
Also making no sense is the idea that making cracks in rocks a mile down under the ground to get nat gas out of the rock is some horror.
When it comes right down to it, all of the insanity depicted in this movie is a direct consequence of people being brainwashed about CO2 and global milding.
Peter Roach, thank you, I’ve been long looking for GHG footprint data as you presented it. Very helpful.
Thank you, I do have a 4page pdf that goes in to detail where all the numbers come from that I could make available somehow, if interested.
I do wonder how many commenters have viewed it. I thought Ozzie Zehner was a brilliant participant and want to see more of him.
Several sources that can be readily found with a simple search using the operand “what is michael moore’s net worth” estimate it at $50,000,000. Another Hollywood limousine liberal.
The people responsible for cutting down those rainforests to make palm oil plantations and doing that to those orangutans should be stoned, IMO.
And I think I would throw the first one.
Tar and feather them and send them out of town.
“I’ll be dam*ed if I’ll ever watch anything Michael Moore produces”
Gee John G, does this mean you never watch any critiques of your cherished ideas? How did you come to have these ideas? Who gave them to you. Look, it makes your position on this issue and essentially all other positions you stand by look shallow if your reaction to Moore is simply impotent anger. Bring your ideas to life by delving into them and have a superior ‘take’ on such issues. Show Moore up to be wrong or trivial or something.
Frankly, when one of your own giants that you have supported through all of his other projects suddenly gets a makeover, be shaken, like McKibben or the Sierra club, although they, too will resort to anger, ad hominems and reprisals instead of rock solid rebuttal with facts, logic and ‘rapier-like wit’ because they, too haven’t got game.
Mr. Pearse,
See above:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/30/planet-of-the-humans-climate-activists-scramble-to-choose-a-corporate-sellout-scapegoat/#comment-2982145
Was anyone else wondering if the people that made this movie are aware that one of the two Koch brothers they kept highlighting, died a while ago?
David Koch died a few weeks after the limited first release, way back in August 2019.
Ah, OK.
That ‘splains it.
Thanks, Eric.
I’m rooting for Weepy Bill.
You can do it, Mon! Hoe that row. Show your corporate-backed creds. Win! Win! Win!
Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for anyone that promotes eliminating fossil fuels yet there’s a photo of him heading home from shopping carrying those disposable plastic bags that he rails against. I love a good do-as-I-say-not -as-I-do kind of guy. How do you think I raised such great children? ;o)
.
.
“Don’t smoke pot.”
But dad, you smoked pot when you were our age.”
“That was the ’60s. Do as I say, not as I did.”
The secret of successful parenting revealed.
The biggest fonder of 350 is NOT Swedish at all.
It might be Danish, http://www.vkrf.org/
Rasmussen fondation.
Money comes from Ventolux a window company.
Here is a very good account, from a “reformed” Sierra club member.
http://www.environmentalismgonemad.com/
Environmentalism Gone Mad
How a Sierra Club Activist and Senior EPA
Analyst Discovered a Radical Green Energy Fantasy
by Alan Carlin
Dr. Alan Carlin is an economist and physical scientist with degrees from Caltech and MIT and publications in both economics and climate/energy, who became actively involved in the Sierra Club in the 1960s as an activist and Chapter Chairman. This led to an almost 39 year career as a manager and senior analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“We are in a climate emergency. That means we all need to do everything we can to get the world to stop burning fossil fuels and chopping down trees.”
The film actually says quite a lot about chopping down trees. It clearly shows that “biomass” and “wood chips” are really all about chopping down trees for energy. As with so many “green” policies, including biomass and bio fuels, the actual result is to cause more environmental destruction.
Well done to Michael Moore and the maker of the film for showing all this green hypocrisy for what it really is. Hopefully with time they’ll finally realise that we’re not doomed, and that increasing prosperity for all of mankind is the best way to protect the environment.
Chris
The question we are now all asking “Will this film promote change ?”
In my opinion nothing will change. It’s been obvious to everyone that’s not afflicted by green ideology that RE is a scam that provides power we can’t use in any significant quantity in an energy grid. The fact that this film has been made by a member of the green-left fan club will only result in the expulsion of at least one person from the club. The message will be the same “If we keep repeating the same failed experiment year after year with more free money donated by western governments, one day it will work because that’s what our science says”.
How do we promote change Serge?
Don Pittis was a forest firefighter, and a ranger in Canada’s High Arctic islands. After moving into journalism, he was principal business reporter for Radio Television Hong Kong before the handover to China. He has produced and reported for the CBC in Saskatchewan and Toronto and the BBC in London. He is currently senior producer at CBC’s business unit…. Better known for driving a diesel VW Jetta… until the emission scandal emerged.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/planet-humans-michael-moore-economics-1.5549693
Pittis evacuates the whole issue fast…
Excuses…
Ahahaha and then follows a promote for green stuff, Pittis has found the perpetual movement!
LOL the whole article is in the same vein…
And he finishes with Greta!
What a Pittis!
Here are some of my “takes” on the film:
Michael Moore didn’t make the film, and wasn’t much involved in it, except maybe some editing. He’s more a promoter of it than a producer.
The film’s objection to the green movement is mostly that it isn’t pure enough. It is allowing capitalists to get involved behind the scenes, and allowing any use of fossil fuels to back up or supplement renewable installations. This is consistent with Moore’s demonization of money-making and of non-purist actions.
The film’s critics are right in saying that some of its criticism is dated or inaccurate. (I haven’t actually read their criticism.) For instance, solar panels today are more efficient than the ones criticized in the film.
The film’s main criticisms were directed at the use of biomass. But it failed to criticize one of the fattest targets out there: the attempt to convert biomass into biodiesel, using algae, massively funded by Silly Valley bigwigs. Even 60 Minutes had a field day with that.
There was little criticism of all the money the government lost by giving loan guarantees to dozens of failed green energy companies like Solyndra.
The film wasn’t very focused. It mostly took opportunistic slams. So it only dinged its target(s), rather than destroying them, as some of us skeptics would like to believe.
What is the actual call to action in the film? Stop deploying renewables — and then do what instead? Mass executions or suicide? Chinese-style limits on family size? Forced sterilization? Are any of the proponents volunteering to go first?