It’s all about coming home
Independent and multiple award-winning documentary maker Marijn Poels presented September 17th his latest documentary “Return To Eden” on You Tube. The last part of his planned trilogy.
The whole film can be seen here:
In 2017 his notorious first part “The Uncertainty Has Settled” appeared. In it, Poels discussed various scientific assumptions about climate change and also visited climate critics. This film left him with hundreds of hate mails and threats from activists. In many places the film was refused and taken out of cinemas under political pressure. That’s why he decided to produce his second part “Paradogma” where he investigated the toxic state of the current public debate and made themes such as polarisation, conformism and intolerance visible.
In the third part “Return To Eden”, Poels returns to climate change and agriculture. In more than 100 minutes he asks the question to what extent we humans are part of nature and where the boundaries lie in the urge to regulate climate, nature and our food supply. Is climate change really a problem or just a distraction from the real problem? In order to find out, he travels through Europe, Africa and America and visits inspiring experts in search for understanding, solutions and hope.
Climatologist Judith Curry about this film: “it is really good. STUNNING cinematography. With ‘Return To Eden’ Marijn Poels establishes himself as an important voice in our quest for living in harmony with nature”
Far away from collective climate hysteria, fear and chaos, there is hope, inspiration and solutions. Across political colours. Averse to framing. Full of deep wisdom from people who approach solutions ecologically. Where the globalised farmer is strangled between government subsidies, banks and buyers and sucked into the core of the problem, the independent entrepreneur grows his local food in an inspiring way, in the middle of the desert. And that may well offer more solutions than just for our food. A healthy, living soil consumes large quantities of CO2. But can it even go a step further? Can healthy soil calm the climate and even prevent hurricanes?
“The boundary between regulating and manipulating is razor-thin,” says Poels. “As citizens, we have to guard these lines very critically. Especially in agriculture. Sustainability and CO2, in particular, can indefinitely be misused as tools to push global political agendas. Centralization of power, agriculture and our food is ripping us further apart from our biological and natural balance. Common sense can be quickly confused with spreadsheets and technology. Chaos can grow very well on those. The technological revolution is an exciting direction which is not essentially wrong. But to what extent does our technology now support life? Today’s technologies can imperceptibly swallow culture, agriculture, identity and turn our daily system into chaos. Creativity, freedom, innovation and fundamental biological connections are at great risk. “We are the only species on earth rapidly separating themselves from their biological origins. Is that clever and where is the boundary?” That is what Poels is trying to discover in a thought-provoking story which will be online after September 17th.
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Note for editor:
Watch Return To Eden in your language:
Canada: https://youtu.be/1s4vWrHw3WY
Dutch: https://youtu.be/TTNOnXHPvHA
German: https://youtu.be/p3D1Ggkrz9M
United States: https://youtu.be/BM5P9GA-Mc4
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With best regards,
Marijn Poels
https://twitter.com/marijn_poels
https://www.facebook.com/marijnpoelsfilms/
https://www.youtube.com/user/inspirerend
If you like to stay in touch please describe to our mailing list via http://marijnpoels.com
Will watch the film ASAP, thank you. In other news:
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/09/19/ted-cruz-warns-rbg-successor-must-be-confirmed-before-election-day-heres-why-974335
Ted Cruz is correct – replace RBG ASAP! The Dems are trying to steal this election through blatant frauds – from the needlessly-extended full-Gulag Covid-19 lockdown to ballot-stuffing with mail-in ballots to “refusing to concede the election” scams. The Dems have revealed themselves to be full-on Marxists, with their dysfunctional Green New Deal that will destroy America’s economy.
I have two engineering degrees and my expertise is energy and climate and I can assure you that green energy schemes like the Green New Deal cannot work – we published that conclusion in 2002 and nothing has changed. The rolling power blackouts in California are more evidence that we are correct.
We also published in 2002 that there is NO real global warming emergency and the evidence is overwhelmingly supportive of that conclusion.
The global warming extremists have made ~50 very-scary climate predictions, and not one has materialized – their false scares are political, not scientific – concocted by wolves to stampede the sheep.
The ability to predict is the best objective means of assessing scientific competence, and the global warming alarmists have NO predictive track record – they have been 100% wrong about everything and nobody should believe these fraudsters – about anything!
I will watch it, when someone has made subtitles for it, so that myself and the rest of the 17% of the population who have hearing difficulties can actually understand what is being said. And no, youtube automatic subtitles are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
So far most of it is subtitled (whenever English is not being spoken).
Very good film. Not always accurate but very open minded investigation. Just a shame he did not include Allan Savoys 140,000 elephant kill. That is the real context to his story and when he had his Damascus moment.
Very good film. Not always accurate but very open minded investigation. Just a shame he did not include Allan Savoys 140,000 elephant ki11. That is the real context to his story and when he had his Damascus moment.
Hate to get into politics, will definitely see the new film.
But in reality there is not enough time to confirm a new justice before the election. It may not even get out of committee before then. Senators that are up for re-election, or running for VP etc, are on the campaign trail. No John McCain types are going to rush back to the Capitol during a campaign to vote for anything. Look at what happened to his campaign! They are too smart for that.
So the real issue is what happens if the President loses? Can the lame duck Senate approve a new justice? Historically yes, but who knows really.
The political class are gong to squeeze every single vote they can out of the controversy, but there really is no controversy. What else is new?
They are squeezing every vote they can out of every controversy they can scare up, “climate change” included. It does not seem to be working all that well for the left, lots of propaganda value stuff but I don’t see any real enthusiasm at the grass roots level. Looks more like 1984 than 2008.
If it often seems like you are talking to a wall when you talk to your friends about climate change, for example, you are. The ones that are lost in the propaganda controversies no longer have any tolerance for truth.
The controversy stirs emotions that are supposed to stir actions, especially in the voting booth. Trying to inject simple obvious common sense into the middle of that is like getting between your pooch and his dinner after it is on the floor. Good luck with that!
There’s plenty of time. The quickest a justice has been confirmed after nomination is zero days, i.e., confirmed the same day of nomination.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/picking-rbgs-successor-who-when
Icisil, you could be right. Hope so. But those fast confirmations were before Joe Biden, Teddy Kennedy and their Demoncrat buddies invented the “Borking” procedure. Just look for clips of Biden and others at the confirmation hearings for Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas and more recently Justice Kavanaugh.
Everybody expects politicians to lie and deflect, smear and engage in demagoguery. It goes back to the first democratic attempts at self-government in ancient Athens. Just one of the reasons we are a democratically elected representative republic, not a pure democracy.
But something about the Supreme Court awakens the worst in them today.
Everyone knows the Democrats will all vote against whoever Trump nominates. So there’s no reason to go through the charade of fake ‘hearings’ so the Democrats can bring out fake accusers to try to justify their vote.
Just pick a candidate and vote.
Oh come on Allan, it is obvious that you use old fashioned mathematics to calculate these things. You should be using the more up to date ‘ climate maths’ where calculations are based on emotions not actual numbers
Tonyb
Allan Macrae
Thank you for your comments.
I have noticed a pattern. Some of the clearest rejections of climate alarmism have come from engineers. Engineers are not interested in theories but in what is practical and affordable. The are not interested in speculative models but in empirical trials to determine what works.
I am neither a scientist nor engineer but well grounded in logic and careful reasoning. In my judgement skeptical engineers make sense while naive extremists do not.
For the record, every vote on a Supreme Court nominee of the past 45 years was voted on in less time than President Trump has between now and the end of his current term on January 20, 2021.
Allan
Would the President be able to make an recess appointment to the Supreme Court if McConnell were to move the senate into recess? If this were allowed and the Republicans took back the senate would they then be able to approve this appointment? Curious. 🙂
I believe it’s been done before now.
It would, of course, cause a complete meltdown on the left if he did it this time.
“t would, of course, cause a complete meltdown on the left if he did it this time.”
The Left has already completely melted down. Have you heard all the threats they are making over Trump naming a replacement to the Supreme Court?
The radical Democrats sound a lot like the Chicoms when they don’t get their way. They are both a bunch of bullies who think they are entitled to whatever they want.
I enjoyed the film – recommended..
To ‘celebrate’ this, the BBC are featuring Poebe Keane’s deceitful attack on Dr. Soon on the fron page of their website.
Give them their due, it is listed under ‘Stories’.
I’m skipping breakfast to watch this film.
This is how I grew up (not with cows, but horses – same thing): keep it simple and you’ll prosper. Plow last year’s biomass into the soil when spring comes, otherwise: leave the cornstalks and wheat stems and plant some alfalfa or soy (both fix nitrogen in the soil), and stop using all those chemicals. This is nothing but common sense, for Pete’s sake.
Now they leave the cornstalks until spring and I go out there looking for corncobs that didn’t go through the separator and still have corn on the cobs, and take that stuff home for the squirrels. I also go hunting for acorns. Lots of different species of oaks around here: black oak, white oak, burr oak, etc. The squirrels love those acorns and I can scatter some in the woodlands here. Keep the critters happy and you’ll have good neighbors.
I saw a deer buck eating acorns the other day right off a tree and he spent quite a lot of time doing so. Native Americans engaged in tribal warfare over selected oak groves and used somewhat elaborate procedures to remove tannic acids from their acorns. There must be something special about acorns than just being a source of starch.
Have you every prepared acorns for your own consumption?
A guy at work used to do that, and would bring us acorn cookies.
https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/survivalist/survival-skills-5-ways-eat-acorns/
Scissor, no, I haven’t, because the squirrels would be incredibly annoyed with me for cheating them out of their favorite treat. The side effect of giving them acorns is that they bury most of them, and then forget where they put them, which means that eventually, new oaks will sprout and grow.
If you want to get rid of the tannin, you have to hull the acorns first, then soak the meat in water, let it dry, and then pound the living daylights out of it to turn it into flour. I’d rather spend my time hunting on fixing a good pot of soup and let the squirrels have the acorns. But I know what you’re talking about.
I watched this film all the way through to the end. It is worth every minute of your time to do so, especially the part toward the end where the real agenda of Agenda 21 is defined – force all Hoomans into megacities and make the rest of the planet off limits to us. That is entirely about control, and nothing else.
There are several people I will send the link to this film to.
Good comment. Agenda 21 is a threat to freedom and even our well being. They want to concentrate people into mega cities and if anything, COVID-19 shows how disastrous this could be. CC and virtually every “crisis” is being used for control. People need to beat the bureaucrats at their own game. For example, wind turbines and PV solar panels need to be 100% recyclable.
I have a fairly large oak tree in my backyard and some of the acorns are quite large. As a chemist, I’m used to doing test tube experiments. I think I’ll collect some acorns and experiment with them.
It hints of those post-disaster movies like ‘Soylent Green’, ‘Blade Runner’, and other similar post-disaster episodes, and Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Heinlein’s ‘Revolt In 2100″.
If that’s what they want, they can have it, as long as they leave the rest of us alone.
Sara
Interesting about the mega cities. Here in the UK the pandemic has had exactly the opposite effect with people fleeing the city to live in the suburbs and countryside.
I assume that will be the case in other developed countries.
Tonyb
definitely happening in Aus as well
our lower priced rural properties are being grabbed fast
which isnt as good as it sounds
quite a few wont cope with very small towns life and lack of services and entertainment, the poor roads etc
more annoying is its the better off doing the buying to live/or rent out as taxdodge investments
meaning the actually poorer people cant buy
Every kid I grew up with (1940s schoolboy) ate the bitter things! They were bitter to start with but mellowed out as you chewed them. Crab apples were also picked instead of leaving them to rot on the ground as they do nowadays. Crab apple jelly was a beautiful passionate pink and delicious. Those cold flat prairies made one less fussy I think.
Maybe woke Manitobans are agonizing that climate change have made the acorns too bitter.
Where I grew up, everyone lived with on the land. People were well and well fed in good years. India now has a grain surplus some years, all because of technology (and increased CO2). ‘Organic’ is for the rich city dwellers and a few people who live ‘on the land’, but only for a few years. Emoting about feeding squirrels is indicative of a very ‘modern’ technologically supported lifestyle. Try having to take your baby’s diapers and all other cloths to the well or river to wash before you go all greenie.
I’m only ten minutes in.
One of the family members buys the product of a permaculture farm for her business. The stuff costs 10 times as much as the stuff produced by more conventional methods. On the other hand, even the best of the regular stuff contains traces of pesticides.
Do humans really create deserts? We nearly did during the dirty thirties. The soil was literally blowing away. PFRA We learned how to farm better before it was too late. On the other hand, the globe is greening and we’re encroaching on the Sahara desert.
Is reductionism embedded in our DNA? No. It’s a very useful tool we discovered after inventing language and logic. It means we can deal with one thing at a time. Like any other tool, it can be abused, and often is. Without it though we’d still be living in mud huts or something like that.
I don’t think I’m going to finish watching today. There’s too much else demanding my attention.
On the third had, even organic stuff contains pesticides. Both the man made kind (usually more toxic than the stuff whined about by greens) and the natural kind that plants make in order to kill insects. (Also more toxic than many of the man made pesticides).
The 1.25X setting is your friend.
I have an overwhelming desire to reduce the message to globalists are the greatest threat to mankind.
Just get acquainted with the organic compounds that occur naturally in the plants we eat. The reason most agricultural chemicals are harmless is because we evolved the livers of the omnivore: some herbivores go even further than us like the koala in ability to detoxify organics. Eating ‘organic’ is the territory of the rich city dwellers and a few who spend a few years ‘on the land’: anyone who also eats avocados and quinoa in Canada is a million miles from nature. All the people here who deplore windmills and solar farms because of their unreliability and also go for living on the land without modern transport are crazy. The reason Bihar had all those famines all the time I was growing up was because they were dependent on the weather of the year for their daily bread, and there were not enough roads and rails to bring in food when the crops failed.
This film is beautiful. Thank you for posting. It presents a view of agriculture and nature that most of us city folk have not seen before. Stunning, as Judith Curry said, and worth every minute of your time, regardless of your own views and opinions. Learn something new every day.
A healthy, living soil consumes large quantities of CO2. But can it even go a step further? Can healthy soil calm the climate and even prevent hurricanes?
Sounds like some one has bought into the CO2 causes “Climate Change” bullshit.
We’re not gonna be driving to Eden in our mandated electric cars, that’s fo’sure…
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/electric-cars/353209/energy-firms-want-right-switch-electric-cars-charging-home
Can’t stay at home either after The Mandated electric (heat pump) heating systems are switched off too…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/17/smart-meters-could-used-turn-heating-vehicle-chargers-plans/
Innit time someone (apart from Mr Trump who already is awake) actually roused themselves and woke (in the conventional sense of the word) up?
I used to grow food like that industrial facility, but in a greenhouse. Used pebbles for soil and fish waste for fertilizer; flush and dump. Hope to do it again someday.
Why flush and dump it? The more “fertilizer” (e.g., cow and horse and fish manure) breaks down, the more it becomes dirt, and is still rich in minerals that make things grow. Don’t toss it. Recycle it.
Flood and drain is a better description. Flood the pebble bed with water quickly and let it drain slowly giving the roots time to soak up water and nutrients. Rinse and repeat. There was no soil. Pebble beds were contained in plastic 55-gal barrels cut in half vertically. Some people call it barrelponics (barrel + aquaponics).
Forgot to mention: water wasn’t tossed; it drained from the pebble beds back to the fish tank with nitrates removed.
The Romans got huge amounts of grain from North Africa, from areas that are pretty barren now. I don’t know if agriw if agriculture or natural climate change was the cause.
Using the word “Eden ” is the same as “Utopia” in this imperfect, and some woulld say -fallen
World this is impossible.Humans are however quite creative both in a positive sense and , also negative way. We are constantly bombarded by impending doom and gloom-and none of it usually happens.What happens it the event unforeseen. A surprise attack by an enemy (boy those industrial
growing operations would be good example.) a Meteor strike, a large Volcanic eruption even VE-7 would screw up the climate. The damage would depend on latitude .I do think we should not put our collective eggs in one basket. But the idea of “Eden ” while nobe needs to address the fact that it is unachieveable and may be futile.
I watched the whole thing. Around the 30 minute mark with well over an hour to go, I thought about abandoning the project. But when there were 5 minutes left I was happy to have invested the time, and disappointed that it would soon be over.
Those who wish to pigeonhole Marijn Poels politically or socially will find the task challenging. My impression is that he’s simpatico with anti-globalization populists, highly skeptical of the motivations of the elite pushing Agenda 21 and focused on organic farming. A bit of a back-to-nature hippy.
The message is not compatible with Schellenberger who champions intensive agriculture and urbanization to allow for more untouched wilderness. Poels’ message is that organic farming is compatible with nature and it’s not an issue that much more land needs to be used. More cattle will maintain the soil and reverse desertification.
I’m not sure what to make of this film. You will find no conventional wisdom here, but that is not to suggest no wisdom. The photography is beautiful and the dialogue is thought-provoking. He seems uncertain himself of all the right answers, which itself is refreshing in a world of strident agitprop. Worth watching.
I watched the first documentary “The Uncertainty Has Settled” and it was a complete waste of my time. Most of it was about farmers complaining about excessive regulations, and international food dependency. The only thing that made sense was the interview with Freeman Dyson, but what he says was already known to me. I couldn’t believe Friends of Science would sponsor a documentary that ends with a 10 min sequence about abiogenic oil.
No way I am watching any of the other two.
Javier,
Anyone who lives in a beautiful little treehouse in Germany can’t be all bad! The cinematography is quite good and, while I don’t agree with some of the interviewees, much of the film is thought provoking!
I’m currently watching the second part of the trilogy, ‘Paradogma,’ which seems to be more an indictment of groupthink. Personally,I think you’re missing out by not watching ‘Return to Eden,’ but that’s your choice!
Javier,
You’re gonna miss Josh’s effective visual sarcasm at 59 minutes ff. With animation yet.
I just checked the credits. It is indeed Josh.
In the documentary someone pointed out that agriculture is not opposed to nature, it is nature. That’s in keeping with the truth pointed out by Freeman Dyson.
The greenies worship biodiversity. As Dyson points out, biodiversity flourishes on land occupied by humans. As the film points out, wilderness can actually be rather bad for biodiversity.
If “climate change”TM has done anything, it has taken the focus away from real environmental problems and their solutions. The sanctimonious likes of Al Gore and David Suzuki and Michael Mann are pure unadulterated evil. They are bad for mankind and they are bad for the environment.
I’m pretty sure I know where Freeman Dyson is now. I’m also pretty sure I know where Maurice Strong is. It’s not the same place.
{/rant}
Thank you Juan, that animation short is really worth it, with the original voices of a lot of people, including Judith Curry and Susan Crockford.
Josh is a really interesting person. He knows about emperor Tiberius words about excessive taxation “Boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere.” I didn’t understand the last word and had to look it up.
In my view the abiotic oil scene was intended to show the sense of confusion that Poels feels while exploring so many deeply conflicting views. I see it not as an endorsement, but rather as his showing integrity that he will present all views. Why do you object to that but not to the scenes where the orthodox climate dogma was presented?
These documentaries are less about science and more about philosophy. While your intention was apparently to dissuade others from watching them, in my case you prompted me to watch. So thanks for that.
Obviously I object to the presentation of something that is absolutely fringe and discredited as a serious scientific theory to a naive public.
The orthodox climate dogma is the dominant theory. Why would I object to its presentation? The documentary presented the views of von Storch which are not extreme at all. In fact I agreed with almost everything he said. We are absolutely sure the world has been warming and we are convinced CO2 has been contributing to that. He went to say climate change is just one of several problems we have, not the main one. I disagree it is a problem, but it is clear von Storch represents the ample majority in climate science. The abiogenic oil guy just represents himself and a very small group of very confused people.
I am sorry but that abiogenic oil segment, and it being the last one, completely destroys the message of the documentary and its reliability to any impartial observer. It makes it a joke and easily dismissable.
The naive public is not always as undiscerning as you imagine, Javier.
Apart from that, what actual horrors flow from the mistaken idea that oil and gas are formed 100km below the surface from primordial sources and will never be depleted? Almost all of us would agree that it’s demonstrably false. (Hello Zoe).
Most of us will be skeptical of many things presented in these documentaries, yet still find them thought-provoking and valuable. We understand that there is a narrative being explored—namely that the general public are confronted with a contradictory and mystifying set of opinions, and there are huge social impacts from climate policy.
I guess that your concern is that persuadable people might dismiss the valid scientific arguments elsewhere in the film if they understand that abiogenesis is not sound science. If they are not sophisticated enough to discern that not all of the points of view presented can be correct at the same time, and that the narrator is not espousing every view, but merely presenting the views as fairly as possible, then these philosophical documentaries are not for them.
The value of having someone from the “religious left” like Poels, or from the secular left like Schellenberger, or even the demagogic left like Michael Moore challenging the orthodoxy is that each can reach an audience with credibility that a person of the right cannot. They may potentially break the iron hold that climate orthodoxy has on the general public. Suddenly the “97%” opposed only by right-wing cranks looks more like the isolated vested interests opposed from all sides.
These documentaries are not primarily about climate science. They explore the societal effects of our political responses to perceived threats of climate change. You don’t have to accept that there is a conspiracy to de-industrialize the West to see that the policies in place have had that effect. You don’t have to agree that modern agriculture is turning farmland into desert in order to notice that farmers in Germany have stopped growing potatoes and raising cows in order to pursue subsidies for biomass.
Perhaps these social issues are as irrelevant to you as TSI, ECS, TCR, ENSO, and AMO are to the average citizen?
You’re absolutely right. If someone says something you know is wrong, everything they say is wrong. We should stop using Newton’s laws of motion right now because the guy was a crackpot.
The best way to convince a farmer to change, is to show him another farmer doing something more profitably, ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL.
Unfortunately, there are no broadacre “organic” systems that are as productive as the better “conventional” systems. The reason that they are “conventional” is that the majority of us have examined the opportunities, constraints, costs and benefits in the context of our environment…. and come to similar conclusions.
Those of us who farm on old, naturally leached soils know that essential minerals like phosphorus can be depleted… inevitably, given that (unlike natural systems) the plant and animal products are consumed far away and the residue is flushed out to sea instead of returned to the soil.
Those of us with Mediterranean climates (hot dry summer, cold wet winter) have worked out that we don’t get the combination of warmth and moisture to efficiently break down organic matter in the soil.
Those of us who farm at considerable distance from population centres are not able to engage in direct sales to any great extent.
It is what it is.
Return to Eden: Wow. Just wow. He’s fan supported, and this is something I am supporting: marijnpoels.com/support
From the article: “But can it even go a step further? Can healthy soil calm the climate and even prevent hurricanes?”
No, it can’t.
My tuppence worth…
Firstly, that’s a pretty freakin’ cool tree house.
Ok, seriously though, I did enjoy the film, nicely shot with good sound, but overall it felt a bit meandering, disjointed, anecdotal and lacking in detail. A modern hippy film.
The geo-engineering people scare me…. I mean what could possibly go wrong?
The cartoons are funny but again just seem wedged in as an after thought.
The UN stuff was good (at this stage who doesn’t hate the UN), but only one interview? that’s not convincing.
Nice to see Allen Savory come back at the end showing grazing techniques similar to Joel Salatin’s work.
Last quick thought, I think it could have got a lot more information across and guided the viewer better throughout the film with a much more salient narration.
Thanks for informing us about these excellent, courageous and much-needed documentaries by Marijn Poels. I’ll watch them all ASAP.
Eco-Hit1er has already been born. He/she is in a kindergarten or school or University somewhere. We are in the eco-1930’s. An ecofascist apocalypse threatens to sweep away our children’s world. We have to do something to stop it while there’s still time, powerful forces hiding in the shadows are moving this agenda forward. They must be identified and stopped. Marijn’s documentaries viewed by the right people will help a lot.
The comment toward the end about peer review really hits the nail on the head.
I started watching this on the US site, but had to go out for a bit. When I returned, it was no longer available there, so I switched to the site for Canadians, eh. I have not seen Poels two previous movies, but I thought there was a lot of good information in this one (and great photography). Thank you for alerting us to its availability. Near the end, I found Savory’s description of what people think is science (i.e., peer-reviewed papers) is not the whole of science, and the statement that innovation comes from the fringes, not from the “peers” right on point. I agree that much of the film is a series of vignettes in which people’s views are sometimes at odds, but isn’t that the goal–to show that man is not doomed because we have innovators who show us new (and sometimes old) practices that can work.
As an aside, I normally hate listening to German being spoken. But the lady farmer has such a lovely accent. She rounds off all of German’s rough corners.