Planet Sutherland

UPDATE

Despite the silence here on the forum (mostly due to the lack of promotion) it’s clear that this months film hasn’t been well received. As the initial post made clear I was aware of the controversy surrounding the film, and took care to provide links to further material from both sides of the debate. It appears that by encouraging people to view the film and requesting a discussion on the topics it raises I have crossed some kind of line. There has been negative feedback, some of it personally insulting. I had hoped that some of this feedback would be posted here, that it could form part of a debate, but that doesn’t appear to have happened.

The decision has been made to pull this film, I will instead post the next film early. It was never my intention to offend and certainly not cause outrage. I want to talk about the issues, to brainstorm. I abhor censorship, but in the end the suggestion that some people may misinterpret a discussion on this film as Planet Sutherland opposing renewable energy in general persuaded me to go against my own instincts and comply with removing the film, for the good of the organisation. If I have caused damage to the reputation of Planet Sutherland or to anyone associated with it then I sincerely apologise.

This development saddens me. I had hoped we could discuss things openly and honestly in a shared quest for some kind of objective truth, without enforced adherence to an unspoken dogma. Planet Sutherland is a welcoming community. I urge everyone to remember that, to avoid factionalism, personal insults, and claiming ownership of the truth. We cannot hope to achieve enlightenment of we think we have already achieved it. This thread will remain open for those who wish to discuss the issues in an open and respectful way.

I will post my own thinking on both the film and the controversy surrounding it in the near future.

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Our film for October is the famous (some would say notorious) feature length Documentary "Planet of The Humans". This film has sparked a lot of controversy and debate within the environmental movement, with newspaper articles decrying it and various articulate people "debunking" it. On the other hand there are those who support the producers of the film vehemently, and feel that it is a brave piece of work that asks difficult questions that need to be asked.

"Planet of The Humans" examines the true environmental cost of the Green Energy Revolution, and questions if it can meet the energy needs of a modern industrial civilization. It goes on to explore the links between the corporate giants, decision makers and established environmental organisations that are promoting the deployment of these technologies at massive scale as an alternative to reducing our energy use and simplifying our lifestyles.

I'll save my own comments on the film for later, once other's have had their say, but posted below the film itself are some links both sides of the heated debate it has generated, which are fascinating in themselves. First, watch the film and form your own conclusion, as always comments and discussion are encouraged.

VIDEO LINK REMOVED

Upon release there was an outcry, with articles in The Guardian, including one by their flagship environmental commentator George Monbiot. There are numerous instances of others attacking the film. Naturally the film makers have defended their film. Last month Max Blumenthal published an in depth expose of what he believes is an orchestrated campaign by vested interests to suppress the film.

What's your opinion?

Finally, here are my thoughts on “Planet of The Humans”. While I agree that there are flaws in the film, I also believe it has a lot to commend it. The level of controversy in the wider world doesn’t surprise me, but amongst us Planet Sutherlings it has surprised me. Perhaps in a way it’s a good thing. What really interests me about this documentary is the debate it has engendered, and the way it has exposed what I believe is widespread dogmatic magical thinking amongst mainstream environmentalists.

Firstly the film itself. I accept that some of the information is outdated, this has obviously been a project that has spanned a couple of decades and some of the footage and contentions may well not be as valid as they were the day they were filmed. More care should have been taken to qualify some of the information presented, to bring it more up to date, to explain the complexity of some issues. I expect this was avoided as the producers were aiming for a hard-hitting exposé and didn’t want to soften it.

Most of the criticism on this point, about out-dated science and information, takes the form of straw man arguments. Much of it is exaggerated, some to the point of being plainly false. For instance I have heard it argued that the film claims solar panels only last ten years, while they actually last many decades. I’ll use this criticism as an example of how disingenuous arguments are being used to discredit the film.

The film contains an interview with a solar panel sales rep, I expect it was filmed over a decade ago. It was this sales rep who said that some of the panels they sell only last ten years. If the figure of seven years was mentioned in the film I must have missed it, I’ve watched it three times. I suspect it wasn’t there at all, that it has been invented by those who want to discredit it. In reality there are lots of kinds of solar panels with lifespans ranging from a couple of years to many decades. Many large scale deployments have used cheaper, shorter lived panels. The film didn’t go out of it’s way to qualify this information, to explain that many solar panels last a lot longer, but this doesn’t invalidate the point that was being made, that the oft touted claim that solar panels provide free energy forever is false.

The other thing about the documentary that made me feel uneasy was the targeting of a specific individual, one who is seen by many as one of the good guys. It made me feel uneasy, but I don’t think it was unjustified. It was used as a specific example of collusion between organisations that claim to be champions of the environmental cause and the very organisations that are destroying the planet for profit. Nobody likes to admit thy have been deceived, but it seems clear that some of the environmental lobbying organisations in the film are engaged in corporate greenwashing on a truly epic scale. Is this really surprising? If you were an amoral multi-billion dollar corporation and your core business involved environmental destruction, wouldn’t you attempt to control the narrative from both sides in such a way?

There is also an argument that “Planet of The Humans” was in fact a fossil fuel industry hit-piece intended to discredit the environmental movement. In my opinion this is a ridiculous wacko conspiracy theory, which is weird, because I’m not usually on this side of a conspiracy theory argument. I find it hard to believe that anyone who actually watched the documentary with an open mind could come to such a conclusion.

Much of what is presented in the film is accurate, and I believe the points raised are for the most part valid. The forms of renewable energy that are being sold as a replacement for fossil fuels do not have zero environmental impact, nothing has zero environmental impact. Our entire civilisation runs on fossil fuels, without them we wouldn’t be able to build wind-turbines or solar panels.

Now for the really interesting part, for me anyway, and that is the controversy. As far as I can see there are two reasons for this...

My friends, we are living in an information war. This is nothing special, information war is much older that humankind (it’s the reason hover flies look like wasps), but in recent years this has reached a crescendo amongst us human-apes. It was clear to me as soon as I read The Guardian article decrying Planet of The Humans (before I even saw the film) that there was a deliberate propaganda campaign being run against it. I can understand why this is, the film exposes how powerful polluters manage public opinion and maintain control of the narrative using supposedly benign, and in many cases sincerely well-meaning groups and figureheads. It allowed us a glimpse behind the curtain, it showed us how business as usual is being given a coat of paint and sold to us as green. This could not be allowed, it may lead to a genuine non-controlled radical environmental movement (for instance XR) gaining traction.

I’ve been learning about climate and other forms of environmental damage my whole life. Let me let you into a secret: fossil fuels are not the root cause of climate change, the are just a link in a chain. In order for us to maintain our civilisation, with things like mechanised agriculture that allow the current high levels of human population, we need energy. Using any form of energy is going to result in problematic side effects, it's a thermodynamics thing. If we were to switch to nuclear then expect a lot more Fukushimas. If we were to switch to solar then expect a lot more toxic lithium mining and gallium poisoning. In ancient times much of the energy required to maintain civilisation came from slaves, I think we can all agree that was a bad thing.

The actual root cause is harder to discern, because it’s much deeper than is generally appreciated. On one level it is systemic, a result of the way our species organises itself. It’s simplistic to say it’s all down to individual greed, a few bad apples, because it’s much more than that. Some say that capitalism is to blame, but the Soviet Union was an environmental basket case too. In the previous film we saw that the pressure human populations put on their environment and the resultant environmental damage is nothing special, it is an expression of one of the fundamental principles of this fractal universe. Burning mega-tonnes of carbon, messing with the long carbon cycle and destroying the stability of the ecosphere, it’s just a human version of the deer on the Kaibab Plateau eating all the food. The question is: are we capable of using our big brains to transcend this tendency? So far it’s not looking good.

I mentioned at the start of this post “dogmatic magical thinking”, let me elaborate. I’ll try not to go into too much detail, but… There is a thing I call the Eco-Modernist Orthodoxy. To be clear, the definition of modernism I’m using here is:

A socially progressive trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve and reshape their environment with the aid of practical experimentation, scientific knowledge, or technology

The Eco-Modernist Orthodoxy dominates mainstream environmental movement, but not all of us subscribe to it, I don’t. That’s not to say I’m anti-science, or anti-progress, but much of what is proposed by the eco-modernists is unrealistic, insufficient, and serves to maintain the current suicidal status-quo.

Part of the reason we are in our current predicament is because our species has dug up a whole bunch of minerals and used vast quantities of energy build an industrial infrastructure. What is being proposed with the "green revolution" is that we do it all over again, only this time do it a little differently. This seems like madness to some of us, because the true problems are deeper. We need to drastically reduce industrial and economic activity, not launch headlong into a new cycle of it. If technology is your saviour, as it is with the eco-modernists, then it's easy to see how this folly can seem like a solution. To question it is seen by some as being aligned with the "other side", ie. the fossil fuel lobby. This is not the case, it is possible to be critical of the mass implementation of renewable energy without being in favour of fossil fuel use.

If we are to get real about the problems we need to accept that the world we need to bring about is a world in which energy use (as opposed to production) is thought about. It will be a world where nobody has a car, where there are no airports or foreign holidays, mountains of plastic toys for our kids, no encouragement to consume more, no fidget spinners. A world where non-essentials are rare, because we need to use our strict energy budget for essentials. Perhaps there will be no street lighting. This is not to say there won't be joy, the absence of materiel possessions and excessive travel can be replaced with free time, community and connection.

I think one reason so many intelligent and well-meaning people bought into the hate against Planet of The Humans is that is killed their sacred cows. There is a (I believe misguided) belief that if we all sort our waste into different bins and spend a bit extra on an electric car then everything will be fine, we’ll “save the planet”, that life can continue pretty much as normal. I’m sorry to say that this is not the case. Planet of The Humans pointed out that the hope we have been sold is false hope, and that’s difficult to take. Many of the aforementioned intelligent and well-meaning people want the film to be wrong, because it explodes the misconceptions they’ve been offered by those who wish to maintain the current order.

I feel we need to reject the false hopes that have been offered to us by eco-modernism.

I believe that eco-modernism itself has been promoted and corrupted by powerful vested interests to prevent meaningful change. We are told that we can still have easy transport, warm houses, abundant food, and sparkly baubles. Just leave it all up to government, big business and the IPCC, because individual action is futile. I disagree, strongly. It seems to me that established power has spent my whole lifetime proving that they have neither the inclination or capacity to change. Why would they when they benefit so much from the way things are now? What’s more, there will be no “saving the planet”, we face a dire future, to think that’s “in our hands” is hubris. The wheels have been set in motion, any hope of prevention is in the past, we’re in the realm of mitigation and survival (or not) now.

Please don't think I'm advocating defeatism or despondency, I'm not, but I find the false hope really difficult to take. Our relationship with our environment is broken, it's very bad, and it's our fault. Let's face up to that, because if we have any chance of a compassionate future we need to get real in a hurry.

That is the real crime of Planet of The Humans: heresy against the Eco-Modernist Orthodoxy.

'Planet of the Humans' Executive Producer Michael Moore Director Jeff Gibbs

I have used a link provided by George to view the film. For whatever reasons, this now seems difficult to do, at least without paying. Trying to use the same link a few days later gave the message saying the video was no longer available owing to a copyright claim. It seems to be available from www.planetofthehumans.com at £3.00 to rent or £7.50 to buy. Whatever the merits of the film, over which there has been a great deal of often angry controversy since its release in April this year, the interests of neither side seem to me to be served either by the demands made by some groups and individuals that it be taken down, or by the local hostility which seems to have caused the withdrawal of the link to the film and the absence of discussion on this forum.

In trying to assess both the film and the furore it has aroused, there is guidance to be had from two of the articles linked to by George and still available via his post. George Monbiot writes more in sadness than in anger (in the Guardian of 7 May 2020 and on his website, [https://www.monbiot.com/2020/05/11/michael-and-me/] in an article described by Max Blumenthal as 'vitriolic', which it absolutely is not); and Blumenthal has written a long article on Grayzone, an investigative journalism platform of which he is editor-in-chief (7 September 2020). [https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/07/gree ... he-humans/] His detailed article is built around a refutation of an attack on the Planet of the Humans by film-maker Josh Fox, which took the form of a letter to Michael Moore demanding its withdrawal co-signed by twenty-eight respected and in some cases well-known names. [ https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sig ... the-humans ].

The case against the film can be made on various grounds. It spreads a lot of misinformation and some downright lies, such as the claim that claims that, in producing electricity from renewables, “You use more fossil fuels to do this than you’re getting benefit from it. You would have been better off just burning fossil fuels in the first place”. There is footage that was shot other than where it is claimed to be, footage which is grossly out of date, and views attributed to environmentalists which they no longer hold. There is footage of forests being felled to fuel biomass generating plants, and burnt to grow palm oil for biofuels - neither of which, as Monbiot points out is supported by many environmental leaders. It is reasonable enough to oppose these operations - especially the biomass plants shown burning shredded tyres and creosote-impregnated railway sleepers as well as fresh wood - but not to use them to denigrate an environmental movement most of which is equally opposed.

I am not sure if the argument about fossil fuel generating backup being required because of the intermittency of wind and solar is still valid; and the problems of storing electricity are still not solved. There are valid concerns, raised in the film, about the likelihood of the relatively short lifespans of wind turbines and solar arrays leading to a serious problem of decommissioning and disposal of obsolete plant and perhaps a legacy of derelict sites. Issues of environmental dereliction, exploitative employment and depletion of non-renewable resources are raised by the mining of minerals such as cobalt and lithium required to make batteries and solar panels - issues raised in the film and which the proponents of renewable energy need to face up to.

Blumenthal reports Ozzie Zehner, the film's co-producer, as saying “The conversation our critics really didn’t want to have was about the last one-third of the film, which dealt with the influence of billionaires and money in the environmental movement, and the divestment sham.”


And Monbiot admits "There is also a real story to be told about the co-option and capture of some environmental groups by the industries they should hold to account. A remarkable number of large conservation organisations take money from fossil fuel companies. This is a disgrace."

By associating with and donating to environmental groups, corporations and funding foundations presumably hope to acquire a figleaf or 'greenwash' of respectability without significantly changing their activities. Some achieve a similar result by sham divestment, which Blumenthal describes as "a shell game in which fossil fuel assets are simply replaced with investments in plastics, mining, oil and gas infrastructure companies, and biomass."

The film makes more specific attacks on Bill McKibben, founder and trustee of 350.org, accusing him of accepting sponsorship from suspect sources including the Rockefeller Brothers fund, about which Blumenthal provides a lot of detail. McKibben is also accused of recommending to 350.org members as an ethical, fossil fuel-free investment a fund which in fact had holdings in mining companies, oil, and gas infrastructure companies, a biofuel company, Coca Cola, logging giants, and big banks, but this accusation seems to be based on out-of-date data. McKibben defended himself in an article in 'Rolling Stone' on 1 May 2020. [
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... re-993073/ ] (Several of the commenters on that article raise the important caveat that we must avoid the temptation of "thinking that by simply switching to renewable energy sources we can continue to grow, consume, and carry on as we always have.")

George Monbiot makes two other points. He attacks the film's offering what he describes as the most toxic of all possible solutions to our predicament: “We really have got to start dealing with the issue of population … without seeing some sort of major die off in population, there’s no turning back.” He accuses the film-makers of making what he implies are racist suggestions about the need to reduce population, and of not "[having] the guts to face the structural, systemic causes of our predicament: inequality, oligarchic power, capitalism".

With his comment that "It’s not hard to see why the alt-right loves this film" Monbiot refers to what seems to me to be the greatest danger it poses - that it gives encouragement and ammunition to climate change deniers and makes even more difficult the task of putting sufficient pressure on governments to bring about the urgent action required to mitigate the effects of climate change. He links to a 'Breitbart' article (remember Steve Bannon?) by James Delingpole (23 April 2020) [https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment ... rst-enemy/ ] which praises Planet of the Humans as "the most powerful, brutally honest and important documentary of [Moore's] career" and "this bold, brave documentary", and concludes

"What has always motivated me above all in my climate scepticism is my utter horror at what is being done to the planet in the name of saving it. Renewable energy is – and always has been – a monstrous, dirty, ugly scam, orchestrated by a cynical few at the expense of the many. It’s a horror against which we should all unite, left and right."

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the particular claims and criticisms it makes, the fostering of attitudes such as these is the real harm that will be done by this film.

Peter Moffatt 26 November 2020