The bewildering mistakes in Planet of the Humans
Gibbs and Moore show no interest in science, natural or social
So, Michael Moore produced a ‘documentary’ about renewable energy, directed by his long-time collaborator Jeff Gibs. It’s a factual disaster, by all accounts. This post summarizes some of these accounts.
To get you started, here’s Scott K. Johnson writing for Ars Technica:
Let’s say you want to make a documentary about a complex and important topic. You could spend a lot of time on research—developing a complete picture of things, identifying scientists to interview, and figuring out how to give viewers the context necessary to understand the most nuanced issues. Or, you could just go point your camera at stuff until you have an hour and 40 minutes of footage, lay down a voiceover, upload that baby to YouTube, and call it a day.
Planet of the Humans ... falls into the latter category.
The film, unfortunately, is – at times shockingly – bad. It seems to make its arguments in bad faith, knowingly using false information, or out of laziness, knowingly using false information, or both. The point is, correct information is out there, very easy to find and Gibbs never considers it.
This inexcusable documentarian malfeasance brought Emily Atkin, climate journalist here on Substack, to the following analogy:
Planet of the Humans reminded me more of an argumentative essay from a lazy college freshman—as if, after a few hours of studying, he realized there wasn’t enough evidence to support the argument he chose for the assignment. But he was so wedded to the original idea, and didn’t want to waste the hours of work he did, so he overcompensated by being an overly aggressive narrator instead of starting over with a new argument.
Read on for overview of the things the movie gets wrong (interspersed with some choice quotes from the reviewers 😉).
What are the things about clean energy that the ‘documentary’ gets wrong?
First category: Life Cycle Analysis.
There is an entire field of science dedicated to what is called “Life Cycle Analysis”—estimating the cradle-to-grave impacts of mining for, manufacturing, using, and disposing of things like solar panels or electric vehicles. That science makes exactly zero appearances in Planet of the Humans. (Scott K. Johnson)
LCA like this, courtesy of Zeke Hausfather of Carbon Brief.
‘Electric vehicles are dirty because they probably run on coal’. Even powered by coal plants, they are still cleaner than gas cars. EVs, meanwhile, are powered by fewer and fewer coal plants, making them ever cleaner still.
“You use more fossil fuels to [make renewable energy technology] than you’re getting benefit from it.” While fossil fuels are used to make panels and turbines, every LCA shows solar/wind yields more energy than you put into it. Moreover, we are in the process of developing ways of making them without the fossil fuels.
Efficiency & costs
‘Solar panels only have 8% efficiency, wholly insufficient as energy source.’ Efficiency has gone up significantly since it was at 8% and also: costs have gone down. It’s pretty decent tech.
“It is clear that Gibbs has been trying to make this documentary for a long, long time,” writes Ketan Joshi. Most of the ideas in the film about renewable energy — even much of the footage (!) — is out of date. (Cathy Cowan Becker)
‘Wind is a negligible part of the electricity mix’. It already accounts for substantial amounts of electricity generation, ranging between 20-45% across multiple European countries.
What are the things about clean energy that are problematic, but which the ‘documentary’ still gets wrong?
It spends a disproportionate amount of time taking down biomass. Now, biomass is very easy to do badly. But it is overstating the case.
‘Biomass energy devours forests’. While it’s used minimally in the US, it can cause deforestation (ethanol in Brazil, and US timber being shipped to Europe, which has outdated biomass legislation of its own). That’s why most climate activists do not advocate it.
Energy storage
‘Intermittency cannot be solved’. Balancing demand-supply with variable wind and solar is a real challenge, but not impossible. Chemical batteries to upload and offload energy as needed can be scaled up as intermittency increases over the years.
Speaking of intermittency: ‘Using fossil fuel plants to compensate for solar or wind dips is worse than simply running the fossil fuel plant all day’. This is not worse, but it is true that some plants will cease to become cost-effective before they can be completely shut down.
‘Batteries pollutes’. Yes. Moreover, mineral extraction can be brutal on surrounding environment and communities. Fortunately, we do not have to rely solely on batteries. Other solutions include reducing demand by increasing (building) efficiency, as well as creating continental grids that are so diverse they can start to balance themselves out.
‘Hydrogen comes from petroleum’. Er, water has hydrogen? 🙄. But yes, we’re still a ways away from making its renewable version cost-effective.
Anyone who has ever moved house knows about the “transition” period. Your mail is still going to the old house. Maybe half your things are in storage. Your bank still has your old address, and so do all your friends. Your car is at the new house, but registered at the old house.
So where do you live? Is Michael Moore going to make a documentary pointing out that you claim to live at the new house when in fact all the evidence suggests that you still live at the old house?
Come on, people, it’s a transition! Why is that so difficult to understand? (Timmon Wallis)
Who are the wrongly identified enemies of a sustainable climate?
The ‘documentary’ claims the climate movement has been co-opted by Big Biomass. It names at least two climate organizations by name.
Bill McKibben, nor his organization 350.org has taken money from big corporate. McKibben has evolved his stance on biomass and believes it cannot be scaled. He writes a cool new newsletter.
Sierra Club: also mostly against biomass and biofuels, though they allow for some use legitimate cases for treating bio-waste as fuel.
Cathy Cowan Becker has more details about this.
Who are the actual enemies of a sustainable climate?
Why aren’t the fossil fuel companies the target in this documentary? They have actively tried to delegitimize and resist climate action.
What is wrong about its ‘solutions’?
Reviewers point out that no solution is properly presented, but Gibbs &co do hint at two things.
‘Demand reduction through reduced consumption’. What we need is more a more efficient material environment (insulated buildings, public transit, smarter grids), zero-fossil ways of generating energy, and yes, certain lifestyle changes. None of this makes an appearance in the film.
‘Demand reduction through population control’. OK… so, the Global North has largest footprint. But it is not very fertile. In all likelihood, Gibbs is not asking people there to have no kids at all. Probably, they are thinking about ‘them’, in the Global South. But ‘they’ have a comparatively small energy footprint. So, the analysis itself is problematic. The ‘solution’ - population control - meanwhile is just plain terrible. And advocating it means siding with some terrible people too.
Now, the better-off people are – the more their life-expectancy grows – the fewer children they tend to have. That will reduce energy demand in the long run. However, the ‘solution’ is not population control, the solution is creating a better life for everyone.
In conclusion
The most basic and fundamental point (the point Leah Stokes teaches undergrads), which the film makers get wrong or just seem to not get at all is that we cannot go on burning fossil fuels. Even if biomass were our only source of alternative energy, we’d have to do everything we can to transition towards it. Luckily it isn’t, and solar and wind give us a fighting chance for a decent life for all on this planet. So, for Planet of the Humans to take a stab at renewables (and those who are fighting for it) is just… bewildering.
Multiple speakers tell us that industrial civilization cannot devise a solution because industrial civilization is the problem. Working from that axiom, green energy can’t possibly be good, because industries can make money doing it. Exposing the “scam” of industrial green energy is just a defeatist victory lap. (Scott K. Johnson)
Sources
Emily Atkin, Heated, The wheel of first-time climate dudes
Cathy Cowan Becker, Medium, Michael Moore’s environment film a slap in the face on Earth Day
Emily Holden, The Guardian, How the oil industry has spent billions to control the climate change conversation
John K. Johnson, Ars Technica, Michael Moore’s green energy takedown—worse than Netflix’s Goop series?
Leah Stokes, Vox, Michael Moore produced a film about climate change that’s a gift to Big Oil
Timmon Wallis, Vote to Survice, Films for Action, Skepticism Is Healthy, but Planet of the Humans Is Toxic
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