Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As Michael Moore extends free viewing time for his blockbuster “Planet of the Humans” for another month, George Monbiot has launched a savage attack against Moore’s film, accusing Moore of perpetuating racist colonialist tropes.
Some Monbiot quotes;
“The only concrete proposal in your film was that there should be a mass die-off”
“Population growth is what people reach for when they don’t want to face structural and systemic problems, problems such as capitalism. Population growth is what people reach for when they want to kick down, not kick up.”
“What we see is a phenomenon of comparatively wealthy white people saying we’re not the problem, our consumption growth isn’t the issue, its those people breeding, they are the problem. This claims is inherently racist, rich white people blaming poor brown people for an environmental problem which is mainly created by rich white people. This emerges from a very long standing discourse, a discourse which really arose from colonialism, and was used as one of the justifications for colonialism. …”
Strong words from Monbiot. In my opinion what we are seeing is utter desperation in the face of Moore’s catastrophic exposure of the green failure to deliver a viable alternative to fossil fuel.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
No solution is needed for “climate change.” It’s not a problem.
Unicorn farts will do.
At least he says the problem he is fighting is capitalism. If they could be upfront about that we could all discuss the merits of their arguments and solutions instead of the totally fake argument about “carbon”.
Not a fan of Monbiot and some of the garbage he has come out with over the years, but he argues his case well, especially the eugenics content of Moore’s film which he correctly takes apart.
Pretty sure Monbiot does believe in eugenics but he can’t say that when he gets paid by The Guardian. He’s an anarcho primitivist who hates farming more than anything. He admits the British population before farming was around 5,000.
‘.. maximum population of Britain during the Mesolithic (the last period in which we lived only by those means) appears to have been around 5,000.
http://www.bigissue.com/features/interviews/2415/george-monbiot-lets-rewild-british-isles
I have not seen his remarks. but what did he say about destroying the forests for “biofuel”? Something most critics avoid commenting on.
It’s true that efforts of environmentalists to reduce human populations are aimed at “the global south”, but that’s only because i) they are breeding at well above replacement rates, and ii) they’re desperate to pull themselves out of poverty, which will require them to massively expand their resource and energy usage.
There’s no point encouraging rich, developed-nation populations to reduce their fertility; Westerners are breeding at well below replacement rates.
As for Monbiot complaining that the film doesn’t offer solutions – well, explaining why wind and solar cannot solve the “problem” of CO2 emissions IS part of the solution.
Monbiot isn’t stupid, so I suppose the only explanation for his critique is that he’s in it for the money.
Yes, but aren’t they all the same points that Sceptics have been calling out for years. Population reduction has always been a pet of the Climate alarmists. It is usually pointed out to them that Pop. growth has actually been in decline. The phony Climate crisis is a crusade that hurts the poorest societies. This has been pointed out by Sceptics for years. Indeed the whole point of calling foul on renewables is to point out how unreliable they are and how expensive they are. Yet, all of a sudden he is a champion of the poor. Has he been standing on his head, putting this ”debunking” together?
His assumption that the Climate has broken down, is unfounded. So his assertions addressing this concern are irrelevant. The ole plastics in the Ocean, is an environmental issue. Though he claims that the growing population in poor countries are not to blame, it is the bad handling of waste disposal in Third World countries, that is actually responsible for the Plastics in the Ocean issue.
I could be wrong, (as I can’t remember off hand) but I don’t remember Moore having a swipe at the ”poor brown people”
Moore’s documentary is right over the target and scores a direct hit against the whole renewable energy industry. He still subscribes to the Climate crisis thing and the people expressing concern about over population in the film, are actually the ones on the Alarmists’ side. These are the ones Monbiot has a problem with. Great. He has a funny way of debunking, when he apparently has changed sides to critisise his own .
Except when it’s too cold.
Leave Moore alone – encourage leftists to see his film — almost half of it is good – the other half is leftist nonsense.
Half good is the best I’ve ever seen from a leftist.
Richard
Most of what I have seen from the left is half-fast. 🙂
Now removed by YouTube, they found some guy who claims copyright infringement of an image.
The goal of the environmentalists is not to solve a (or any) problem real or perceived but to continue it to fill their coffers with subsidies. Amazingly simple. That message is quite obviously made in the discussed movie. To paraphrase: we need Moore such movies.
The problem is the people demanding “action” against this non-existant climate change problem.
They are a huge problem
Monbiot took only the last couple of minutes of the documentary where Moore sort of threw up his hands, given that renewables, our best shot and the basket we had put all our eggs in to save the planet, simply was a scam that wasn’t going to work. If we have looming disaster for the planet, and renewables dont help and we have no other solutions, population reduction is all that would seem to be left! The raging planet will kill us off to a point we aren’t a problem anymore!
Fortunately both renewables and the problem they are to fix are both phony.
“This claims is inherently racist, rich white people blaming poor brown people for an environmental problem which is mainly created by rich white people”
More on climate change racism
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/14/racism/
It is not their color that is the problem, it is their culture. So is culture racist? Seems to me that much of the problems generated by rich people for poor people are cultural, not racist.
So if you say black people are lazy you are being culturalist , not racist ?
Chaam:
Radical greens know what they are doing – killing tens of millions of little brown and yellow kids is part of the green plan. This is no accident. They’ve been doing it for decades. No rational person could be this stupid for this long.
This is their deliberate strategy to create their vision of utopia – a global socialist dictatorship. To date they are winning – over half the countries in the world are dictatorships, where the few at the top live like kings and the rest live like peasants.
The radical green plan was never about the environment. The environment was always a false front, a smokescreen for their extremist political objectives.
The tens of millions of dead kids are collateral damage – “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”.
A few recent papers to address your valid concerns:
HYPOTHESIS: RADICAL GREENS ARE THE GREAT KILLERS OF OUR AGE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., April 14, 2019
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/
SCIENCE’S UNTOLD SCANDAL: THE LOCKSTEP MARCH OF PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES TO PROMOTE CLIMATE CHANGE
By Tom Harris and Dr. Jay Lehr, May 24, 2019
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/25/sciences-untold-scandal-the-lockstep-march-of-professional-societies-to-promote-the-climate-change-scare/
Moonbat, here’s the solution that has worked for humans for thousands of years:
adapt
You’re welcome.
If Monbiot would remove his insulated jacket, he might realize that global warming is not a problem.
If you remove your insulated jacket in Wales, most of the year its cold enough you risk death from exposure.
You mean it’s not become a Mediterranean climate yet?
He might want to remove those plastic glasses as well.
To what?
Beautiful.
Isn’t the classification “white people / brown people” inherently racist?
Positively yes.
That being said, some of my best friends have been rich white people. My best friend of all time (during childhood) was a poor American Indian. I guess that makes me bi-racist.
However, green people is OK. With subsidies, though.
This is what has happened: Martians invaded surreptitiously 50 years ago and are taking contol of our planet.
The fool attacks rich white people, using the race card strongly, but seems unaware that rich white people are the very ones who push the renewable hard, because it is very profitable up front, with subsidies filling their back pockets.
Then when the system is falling apart, they can walk away…..
Moonbat shows his vast ignorance every day.
Moonbat isn’t ignorant.
He’s on the payroll.
Yesterday Biden declared that you can’t be black if you support Trump.
Or, to quote the terminator, I’ll be black.
Or to quote Biden: “Come on, man!”
Joe China assumes he represents every Black person (because he’s a Democrat and arrogantly assumes their support) and he assumes you should assume that, too, especially if you are a Black person. Come on, man!
U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) says he relishes the opportunity to compare Trump’s outstanding record providing help to the Black Community with Joe China’s record.
Trump, with Senator Scott’s help, has been developing economic zones in Black Communities over the past couple of years that have been very successful, and Senator Scott is eager to go into detail about those successes. I’m eager to hear what the Senator has to say on this subject.
Joe China will have to come out of the basement at some point in time. That will be his downfall.
Trump works for the Black vote, Biden just expects it.
“Yesterday Biden declared that you can’t be black if you support Trump.”
He implied that, but the words didn’t come out that way. It was more like “If you’re having trouble figuring out whether to back me or Trump, then you ain’t black”. So he could have also meant backing Trump means you ARE black. As usual, his words are muddled.
Joe has really been doing well since they locked him in his basement. You see what happens when they let him out. I do hope they let him out more.
Joe Biden approaches infinite wisdom in solitary confinement! My favorite mathematical theorem, that of limits, strikes again!
I prefer to be known as the endangered Northern Great Ape. Our reproductive rates have been well below replacement for a long time. The lefts desire for the decline and fall of Western Civilisation is slowly and inexorably coming true.
The Moonbat has no arguments, so he’s playing the racism card.
I suppose in Moonbat’s thinking, Hitler was a racist, not because he exterminated Jews, but that he only exterminated Jews – (ie. why didn’t cull the human herd more equitably)
The body count of the Holocaust included Armenians, Gypsies, and Soviet PoWs in addition to Jews.
And they started on the “mentally ill.”
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=psychiatrists+the+men+behind+hitler&i=stripbooks&crid=1BXIEQMQKZIBB&sprefix=psychiatrists%3A+the+men+behind%2Cstripbooks%2C188&ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_1_28
Culling “undesirables” is what collectivists excel at.
What climate change problem? No solution needed.
Yes, but getting them to recognize that is the challenge of the century!
Funny – suburbia in the US has the closest to zero-population growth that I’ve seen – unlike these high-density population centers. And yet progressives hate them and seemed hell-bent on destroying them.
One thing is crystal clear: Moonbat is only interested in facts or science to the extent that they advance his evident desire to be the world’s dictator.
Herr Monbiot is the frontman for the nihilist Tickell family. Sir Crispin, the near 90 years old quack who earned a fortune from milking the British taxpayer over decades of disinformation dissemination. Oliver, the author of the fantasy novelette, Kyoto 2 – a cornucopia of canards about climate change.
Their credibility already shot to pieces, Michael Moore finally gathered up these pieces and flushed them down the sewers, where rates may now gnaw on the entrails. Wasn’t the shill once assailed by an irate mother at his Welsh abode, because she claimed Herr Monbiot had “stolen” her son’s pocket money, supposedly to help save Wales from Climate Catastrophe, or something like that? What a despicable boor he really is.
According to Wikipedia
Margaret Thatcher credits Tickell for persuading her to make a speech on global climate change to the Royal Society in September 1988
You are intriguing Jack Black. Sometimes you are forthcoming with previously unknown information and at others you withhold it till you think it has been earned or until the next move. I sense that you quite enjoy being the antagonist, keeps people guessing, they’re never quite sure where you’re coming from.
The popcorn has been passed around in buckets these past few days. Most informative and entertaining.
You are right though, patting each other on the back does little to progress our cause. Michael Moore was an unexpected surprise, if the same movie had been made by any ‘realist’ nothing would have come of it. As it happened ‘he’ made it so people may be more open to being educated. Let’s hope that Naomi can promote our cause in a way that offers maximum exposure. Maybe she needs to have a talk to Michael Moore?
Monbiot is a crackpot of the highest order. We have had to read his nonsense in the UK for years.
People have less children when they are economically successful. Children survive into adulthood and do not die of intestinal diseases etc.
Wealthier societies don’t worry about having more children to support them when they are older as they have a financial system which is developed enough to provide a pension.
The only problem developed countries have concerns an aging population which needs replacing to join the workforce.
“People have less children when they are economically successful.”
They have less children when they get cradle-to-grave indoctrination on being evil for having kids. Historically speaking, the more successful would usually have more kids, or at least more kids that would grow up into adulthood. Which is exactly what evolution wants.
The more successful having less kids than the less successful is Idiocracy in Action.
It wasn’t meant to be a documentary.
The overpopulation myth has a lot to answer for. Humans don’t live forever and need replacing.
Humans don’t “need” replacing.
They just rather enjoy the activity that produces replacements.
In previous eras children were necessary, they provided labour for the fields and to look after stock….food for winter that enabled you to survive.
That a few of them survived their parents and reproduced themselves was a bonus for our species but provided no post death benefits to their parents.
“Fewer”, not “less”.
sars-cov-2 provided a convenient solution to that problem. You just send the sick to “care homes” and let nature take its course.
( I wish I needed a sarc tag ).
“We have had to read his nonsense in the UK for years.”
No we haven’t. “Monbiot” is a fairly unusual name, so you probably won’t miss much if you simply skip over anything with that name tag. It works for me! Also, reading anything The Grauniad (or any similar spelling).
Jerry
Dear George,
I think you’ll find that the poor brown people are having a lot more productive sex than rich, white, people. Worldometer dot com has all the numbers.
Monbiot is asking Moore for something the video WASN’T about.
Moore simply showed that what was being pushed, the clean green energy methods, were neither clean nor effective.
A second film might cover what could be done – which just might include nuclear – which as I recall, Monbiot is quite ok with.
Perhaps Monbiot can be in the next movie Moore makes.
No, Moore’s film argues that the main problem is human overpopulation, and as renewables are not going to make a significant dent on resource and energy consumption, we must look to reducing human populations as “the answer”.
Another “if you don’t agree with me you’re racist/sexist/too rich” and now they can say colonialist! Anytime someone pulls the social card you know they’re trapped and have nothing rational to say.
Here’s an interesting read on colonialism: https://www.nas.org/blogs/press_release/nas_re_publishes_the_case_for_colonialism
I am old enough to remember separate rest rooms, etc. If everybody/thing is racist, nothings racist. If everybody is quarantined, nobody is quarantined. Wait until they try to contact trace, maybe then they will learn about statistics. Did anyone notice that the coronavirus looks like a WWII harbor mine?
People like Monbiot might first ask why nobody produces an answer to what is the true climate sensitivity. They seem unconcerned about the absence of a scientific proof that CO2 produces a predictable amount of air warming in the actual atmosphere, as opposed to in the laboratory.
The extreme measures he favours are based on unproven foundations, but no matter, near enough is good enough, for scare talk, eh? Geoff S
Geoff, Monbiot is not interested in CO2.
There certainly is a viable alternative to fossil fuel for power generation, but the Greens won’t accept it.
Atomkraft, ja bitte !
Just call it a KKW and everyone will start thinking it’s a new, safe form of energy.
Many of these haters ain’t too bright. Powered by a ‘Corn’, see?
What climate change problem? It’s a non-problem. Environmental problem? There are problems to solve, but we’re getting progressively better at it. Monbiot is just another person who mixes climate and environmental issues. These are two very different things. The solution to overpopulated developing countries is to accelerate their development, not to withhold it from them. The “rich white people” do not need to have big families as insurance when one gets old. Demography in developed countries is not a problem.
Argument by skin and class, huh. Diversity (i.e. color judgments) breeds adversity.
No solution is required when there is no problem…but, yes, Moonbat bring on the racist card. If the problem in Moonbat’s mind is capitalism, then the solution to his dilemma (does not apply to climate realists) is a socialist die-off.
Monbiot is purely projecting.
Liberals (and communists) bribing African politicians to not develop their fossil fuel resources is the epitomy of “racist colonialist tropes”.
What a scumbag.
To the point.
Monbiot to Moore: “You Provided Us with No Solutions” to Climate Change.
We have a winner here! There is no ‘solution’ for Climate Change, naturally. Why?
Natural climate change is a non-problem requiring no other ‘solution’ than what mankind has always done: Survive, Adapt, and Thrive!
In addition, Monbiot touting racism and class warfare as his central straw man argument is the refuge of a man with no substantive arguments to offer. Monbiot’s meandering misanthropy miscarries miserably.
Moaning Monbiot’s meandering misanthropy miscarries miserably ?
You Provided Us with No Solutions” to Climate Change
Wasn’t subject of the film, so what ? 😀
It’s commonly said “the left eats itself”
That’s not the whole story.
Any religious movement inevitably suffers from apostasy, heresy, schism, idolatry etc
If they are to be effective they must exterminate such wild branches.
It was thus between communism and fascism 90 years back. Should the state own 51% of you or 100%?
Not much between them otherwise.
And so it is with these modern secular religions with their ineffable and unknowable gods.
One hint of heresy, and to the bonfire you go
It’s commonly said “the left eats itself”
That’s not the whole story.
Any religious movement inevitably suffers from apostasy, heresy, schism, idolatry etc
If they are to be effective they must exterminate such wild branches.
It was thus between communism and fascism 90 years back. Should the state own 51% of you or 100%?
Not much between them otherwise.
And so it is with these modern secular religions with their ineffable and unknowable gods.
One hint of heresy, and to the bonfire you go
You can say that again, Nic.
leitmotif
I see what you did there!
Of all of the “problems” to think of and mention…capitalism? Really?
Did Paul Ehrlich’s “the Population Bomb” arise out of colonialism as well?
You know what sounds like colonialism? White people like Monbiot (from the UK no less) thinking they know what is right for the world and wanting to take control to “fix” it.
Being a Guardian writer, George is of indeterminate gender, race and sexual orientation and can self identify as whatever he chooses to suit his sermon of the hour.
How very dare you insult one of the UK’s national treasures!
Scratch a Guardian journalist, and, under the thinnest layer of paint, you’ll find a vicious, committed authoritarian who really, really wants to run every aspect of your life, and is outraged he can’t.
damn its contagious then
cos the same could be said of the ABC in Aus.