YEAR’S HOTTEST DOC KILS GREEN ENERGY.
Looking for an eye- opening hot doc to relieve the tedium of rewatching the second season of Homeland? Then grab that tablet, phone or remote and head straight for the Earth Day release on Youtube of Planet of the Humans, a Michael Moore- produced documentary that blows up the entire green energy industry, from solar to wind to hydrogen and biomass, from Al Gore to General Motors and Michael Bloomberg, as a giant capitalist fraud.
After just a day on Youtube, Planet of the Humans — get it? — has registered more than one million views ( free) as I write this. It’s hard to know whether each of the million who hit on the video watched all 140 minutes of the documentary’s deadpan expositions of the corporate, bureaucratic, green activist, media and political schemers behind the renewable energy movement, but chances are most viewers would not hit the pause button.
Whether or not all would accept the grim underlying moral premise that humans are destroying the planet — described as the “human caused apocalypse” — most would certainly be compelled to agree that great political and economic manipulation has gone into creating the green renewable energy illusion.
The maker of Planet of the Humans is Jeff Gibbs, a Michael Moore collaborator whose rabid anti- capitalist documentaries are as entertaining as they are often wrong-headed. Not this one. While Gibbs delivers monotone voice-over and on- camera descriptions of humans as suicidal pursuers of infinite growth, he also reveals the backgrounds and double-standard inner workings of the corporate coalitions between Big Green and Big Business.
Watch as a parade of corporate celebs and brands — Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, General Motors, Jeremy Grantham, Goldman Sachs, and many others — line up in partnership with the biggest names in the environmental movement behind assorted renewable energy concepts — solar power, wind, biomass and coconut oil — that Gibbs demonstrates offer little to offset the carbon emissions of fossil fuels.
Watch as a succession of big-name enviros — Bill Mckibben of 350. org, various Sierra Club executives, The Nature Conservancy, Robert Kennedy Jr. — emerge as conflicted and evasive when confronted by the obvious contradictions and falsehoods behind their support of renewables and their partnership with major corporations.
Near the end of Planet of the Humans, Gibbs summarizes what he believes he has documented. “The takeover of the environmental movement by capitalism is now complete. Environmentalists are no longer resisting those with a profit motive, but collaborating with them.” Here Gibbs may have it backwards. It’s the greens who have conned conniving capitalists.
Some of the claims about the economics and environmental impacts of green energy might seem a lot more credible were it not for the dodgy evasiveness of the green movement’s leaders when confronted by their often apparent double standards.
Perhaps the hardest hit in Planet of the Humans is Bill Mckibben, legendary green activist who some years ago threw his support behind adopting biomass — especially wood chips from newly logged forests in the United States — as a substitute for coal. Cornered and questioned at a rally about his support for the burning of biomass, McKibben weasels his way through an evasive answer before walking away from Gibbs’ questions. Later, Gibbs shows Mckibben delivering a keynote speech in support of biomass.
The Sierra Club, in its Beyond Coal campaign, became another official proponent of biomass, which Gibbs describes as “getting out of bed with coal companies and into bed with logging companies.”
Mckibben also hilariously flubs his way through an interview in which he is asked to divulge the sources of 350. org’s funding. Oh, gee, I dunno, says Mckibben. I don’t keep track of such things. He then mentions some obscure German funder. Only under prodding does he admit that, well, yeah the Rockefeller and the Pew foundations are major backers.
One of my favourite scenes involves General Motors executives at the unveiling of the automaker’s first electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt, at a plant site in Lansing, Mich. Gibbs is on hand to ask about the source of the electricity to power the Volt. Where does it come from? The GM official says it comes from the power source flowing through the adjacent building. But what is the source of the power? Gee, I don’t know, says the GM official. It could be a bit of coal, but I think it’s natural gas. Gibbs then interviews a local Lansing official who concedes, in the end, that 95 per cent of local electricity comes from coal.
But perhaps most revealing to many viewers will be the environmental and economic realities behind solar and wind power.
The natural resources needed to produce solar panels — including coal and quartz — are seldom noted by proponents. Vast amounts of energy and materials are needed to build wind turbines.
To devastating effect, if not quite total fairness, Gibbs and his associates visit early U. S. solar and wind projects that have not quite lived up to their promise. The fact that windmills and solar panels have limited lifespans may come as news to many. The main problem — that the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow all the time — is highlighted many times by industry experts.
As a documentary, Planet of the Humans drops a bombshell on the green movement, the renewable energy industry, and talk of a Green New Deal. It also attempts to demolish capitalism and portray human existence as a scourge on the planet.
That dichotomy should make Planet of the Humans the hottest doc of the year.