Michael Moore: A Treehugger Gone Bad?

I've spent the last two weeks watching interviews and reading articles about the release of Michael Moore's latest documentary, titled "Planet of the Humans."

Needless to say, Moore has stirred up a hornet's nest. I can't help but like Jeff Gibbs, the movie's director and narrator, who has a history of environmental work and who had his start in the movement the same way I did. At age 9 he got pissed when a bulldozer began flattening the woods near his home and he fought back by putting sand in the gas tank. I was a late bloomer and didn't jump into the fight until age 10 when my friends and I rearranged the spark plug wires on bulldozers near our home. I continued my guerrilla war against developers until age 16 when I was finally arrested.

So, I was saddened to see Jeff Gibbs cobble together a documentary that's basically a hit job on the U.S. environmental movement. My own research has proven that much of the film's footage and information goes back to 2005, with most of it pulled from the 2010 - 2012 era. Now, come on, green energy is like PC computers — the technology is continually evolving.

In the movie, Mr. Gibbs loves to play "Dennis the Menace," and he sneaks backstage at "100% green energy" music festivals and catches them with electric power hookups or generators. In fact, the movie is filled with "gotcha" moments where he pulls dated and out-of-context interview snips from the nation's environmental leaders and sticks them in his movie. He particularly goes after the Sierra Club and Bill McKibben and his 350.org organization.

Mr. Gibbs appears obsessed with biomass energy, but the two organizations mentioned above now oppose it, and have done so for years. Furthermore, biomass garbage and wood only accounts for a fifth of the green energy mix. The idea of biomass, as I understood it, was to burn waste and wood scraps from lumber mills to create a little energy. If some capitalists have taken it further by clearing forests and building wood pellet mills, well, that doesn't necessarily make them "environmental."

The documentary reminds me of my college days in English 101 where you make a thesis statement and then spend the rest of your time supporting it. The film could have still done this without relying on so much obsolete and slanted information. In the green energy movement we know much work remains to be done on energy storage and smart grid technology, which makes electricity transmission more efficient. We know that to reach true nirvana green energy needs to produce green energy. Right now solar panels and wind turbines are made by heavy industry, which reduces their efficiency when you do a total life cycle analysis. Yes, Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbs, WE KNOW that we must mine materials out of the ground to make wind turbines. We get it.

But doing something is better than doing nothing, and green energy is moving in the right direction. We know that renewables cannot match the powerful BTUs of nasty oil. We will need to make the products that use the electricity more efficient, and we need to learn to use LESS electricity.

The movie implies that we treehuggers have sold out to the capitalists and that we've lost our way. No one is spared in this movies and hits are taken at McKibben, Al Gore, Van Jones, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Thank goodness sweet Greta was spared from the hour and 40 minutes of green bashing.

Okay, we know that the capitalists have moved into the green energy movement. We sort of need them because they are wealthy and most of us treehuggers are poor. Shoot, we can hardly afford to gas up our SUV's, which we need to transport our kayaks and bags of granola.

Granted, I know the capitalists have their usual sinister motives. They want to continue growth and our current materialistic lifestyle even after North Dakota is completely raped and pillaged and they can't squeeze any more oil out of the shale rock. But for green energy alone to replace fossil fuels at our current consumption rate is, I believe, impossible.

I remember in the early 2000s there were peak oil discussion groups, books, videos, and many greenies were saying we'd run out of oil soon. Then everyone got a big surprise with the success of the fracking industry, which is giving us a few more decades of oil and gas, and allowing us to belch more carbon into the atmosphere. My point is that the future is always full of unexpected surprises and if we can invent fracking, I'm sure we will invent some incredible green energy breakthroughs that don't exist now. I applaud the progressive politicians in the U.S. who have rolled out the Green New Deal, which is a great starting point and a way to get the discussions started.

As for the attacks on the Sierra Club, sir, you are dead wrong. I've been a member for 23 years and have held 8 different positions and have won 10 awards. As soon as I joined, a group of members introduced me to the Simplicity Movement, which I still try to follow today. The Club also works on transportation efficiency, almost as much as it does on green energy. Funny that you didn't mention that, Mr. Gibbs.

And in the eco community I'm seeing many positive movements, such as the tiny house trend, buying locally grown foods, and urban farming. So, after spending most of the movie insinuating that green energy is a pipe dream, a delusion, a fantasy, and maybe even a religion, Gibbs does talk about two other items in the equations — reducing population and consumption. But as I just mentioned above, we ARE working on the consumption issue.

Population and Social Justice Warriors

In regards to human population, I joined the Sierra Club in 1997 to work on population and urban sprawl issues. For years, I took the Malthusian view of population growth and figured that we would just keep on breeding until we were too hungry to screw. But I have since learned that other factors come into play before starvation, such as economic collapse and the high cost of living. For instance, eastern Europe, including a handful of former Soviet states, are now shrinking in numbers. I believe much of this is due to broken economies that are suffering from mass corruption and the plundering from oligarchs. In western Europe and Japan I believe the high cost of living is playing a role in the negative or near-zero population growth.

I am a member or past member of several organizations that address population growth. The main tenets I've always supported are: gender equality, eduction, and universal access to family planning services. These three items alone would greatly slow population growth.

Unfortunately, the highest rate of population growth is in Africa, which is already suffering from mass poverty. When good people from abroad came to wipe out malaria and various childhood diseases, and when they came to teach better agricultural practices, they only succeeded in creating more hunger and poverty. While we want everyone on the planet to have a happy and healthy life, family size must also be addressed. For the rest of this century most population growth will come from central and south central Africa, where projections show another billion people being born. The situation is pretty much irreversible because of the current huge numbers of young people in those areas.

When the movie mentions dealing with population, the Social Justice Warriors (SJW) go nuts. For instance, fellow film producer Josh Fox gets emotional over the phrase "addressing population growth," and makes the assumption that Moore and Gibbs are promoting population control, and he takes it a step further, saying the middle aged white guys want to control the births of people of color. None of the film's creators ever said or implied that, but Fox has a meltdown in one interview and insists that they are. While I appreciate how SJW's care about their fellow human, their hyper sensitivity and obsession with political correctness is overboard. I've met them and find them to be just as righteous and pompous as many religious people. Fox goes so far as to use the term "eco fascism." Give me a break, dude.

In the United States, population is also becoming less of an issue, especially now that Trump has placed a ban on immigration, due to the virus. There are now 10 U.S. states that are losing population, with West Virginia leading the pack. With the coal industry greatly reduced in size, there's not many jobs left in the Mountain State. Hawaii is an example of a state where high living costs are apparently driving the population decline.

Despite the apparent flattening of most growth curves around the world, with the major exception of Africa, the human population explosion is still a major issue and the biggest contributor to climate change. I do not know how many people the Earth can hold but right now we are fishing out our oceans, turning them acidic, and polluting them. We are also polluting our soil, air, and rivers. Each year we release billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere and we are nearing the point of irreversible climate change.

Nuclear Power

Oddly, the 100-minute movie only devotes 6 seconds to nuclear energy. For the last 20 years I've been wondering, "Why can't we just address the problems of nuclear energy?" The big challenges right now are safety and what to do with the waste. Back in 2000 a friend told me about the potential of breeder reactors, which would greatly reduce waste. A type of breeder reactor that uses thorium instead of uranium, and relies on molten salt is particularly promising. However, salt is highly corrosive and that's a huge problem to overcome.

If a safe thorium reactor were invented then it could provide the massive energy needed to melt iron ore and build the wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars we need for a green future. The troubling downside is that it would allow the capitalists to continue their push for unlimited growth on a finite planet and wildlife habitat will still be destroyed, population will surge again, and our quality of life will diminish in a crowded world.

Natural Gas

The only new thing I learned from the entire documentary is quite troubling. We treehuggers celebrate every time a coal power plant is shut down. Electric utilities close these plants down because us greenies needle them with lawsuits, but it's not such a painful decision because many coal plants are extremely old and inefficient. Natural gas has dropped in price making it more viable. We greenies jump up and down and scream "hurray," when a coal plant closes because natural gas is 50 percent cleaner than coal. But if the U.S. continues to grow, the "clean benefit" is offset. So, here is the troubling part: When a coal plant is shut down it's typically replaced by a much larger natural gas plant, which I'm guessing is designed to accommodate future growth. So, okay, Moore and Gibbs finally had a "gotcha" moment that is legitimate.

 Overconsumption and Capitalism

Another one of the few times where Gibbs gets it right is toward the end of the film where he mentions overconsumption. I find the material-obsessed lifestyle in our country, which is promoted by the capitalists, to be disgusting. Such a lifestyle flies in the face of the greatest teacher in history, Jesus Christ. Jesus taught humility, and based on his own life and statements it's evident that he supported simplicity.

In our capitalist culture we are taught to "buy stuff" from a young age. It's what keeps the economy going. But we have an economic system that is driven by greed, selfishness, and self-interest. None of these are Christian values. In the commentary that came out after the film, Gibbs suggests that we should have an economy based on compassion and caring for one another. Again, he gets it correct. And this leads to the whole crux of the issue and a major theme of my blogging: we need a new economic system that is based on the positive attributes of humankind, such as empathy, and not on the negative attributes, such as greed. Right now there is a troubling alliance between evangelical Christians and capitalists, under the banner of the Republican Party, and I find the blatant hypocrisy to be a sad joke.

The Green Religion

In response to the insinuation that we environmentalists expect green energy to be the golden panacea, I would say yes, but we know technology must continue to improve. This reasoning is different from what I see among conservatives and Christians. Conservatives have looked me in the face and said, "climate change is unproven," or "it's part of a natural warming process." I know right-wingers usually just parrot Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, but making such statements is intellectual dishonesty, delusion, willful ignorance, and blatant lying. I've also had Christians tell me "God has a plan," or they say the rapture will save us, or, at least them. So, no, we treehuggers are not delusional, but I believe our ideological opponents are.

Battling Climate Change

One thing that Moore and Gibbs firmly have in common with the environmental community is that we all believe that climate change is a serious threat. But their movie is almost solely focused on bitch-slapping renewable energy and suggesting it's a fantasy. Obviously, stopping the climate change fiasco will require other measures as well. Here are my thoughts:

• We need to vastly reduce the size of the nasty, polluting meat industry. For one thing, it's incredibly inefficient. We grow crops to feed animals and then slaughter animals to feed humans. Why don't we just eliminate the "middleman," so to speak, and grow crops to feed humans.
• We need to plant trees and develop large green carbon sinks. The great tropical rainforests of Latin America, west Africa, and the Pacific islands are important regions for carbon sequestration, yet they are threatened by human development.
• Promote a greener transportation system that utilizes mass transit, bullet trains, and cleaner forms of transport.

Conclusion

"Planet of the Humans," is a poorly contrived documentary that makes straw man arguments and assumes what we environmentalists think and believe. As it turns out, we are more rational and realistic than most of the groups who oppose us. The insinuation that renewable energy can never solve the problem, so we may as well burn fossil fuels, infuriates me. It's always hard breaking ranks with the marchers and I expect to get a lot of flak from the petrol addicts and various special interest groups, but to be turned on by fellow enviros is disconcerting. The one and only good that comes from this movie is the comment Gibbs makes in the post-movie commentary, where he talks about needing a better economic system.

I know the conservatives love this film and they squeal with delight when treehuggers eat their own. But let me tell you something, you jolly right-wingers. Everyone is handed a script when they are born and some people are so conditioned as children that they don't even have the ability to question their religion or culture. So, you can make all the jokes you want about Greta and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but your belief that oil supplies are eternal and that the Earth is infinite is a false idol. You can do the bidding for the 1 percenters all you want, but all you do is accomplish nothing. You are not slowing down the melting of the glaciers in Antarctica, and when they melt our coastal cities won't immediately flood but they will be more susceptible to killer storms and regular flooding. You can brag about the money you throw into the brass offering plate and how many church committees you serve on, but Antarctica is melting and that's just one of the many negative consequences of climate change. So, enjoy your grape juice and crackers and sing songs from your tattered hymnal, but don't judge me for trying to actually make the world a better place.

Sources:

Inside Clean Energy: 6 Things Michael Moore's "Planet of the Humans" Gets Wrong, by Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, April 30, 2020

Michal Moore Produced A Film About Climate Change That's a Gift to Big Oil, by Leah C. Stokes, Vox, April 28, 2020

Planet of the Humans: A Reheated Mess of Lazy, Old Myths, by Ketan Joshi,  Ketan Joshi - Energy, Science, and Technology blog, April 24, 2020

Response: Planet of the Humans Documentary, Bill McKibben, 350.or, April 22, 2020

Sierra Club Statement on Inaccurate and Misleading YouTube Video, by Jonathon Berman, Sierra Club website, April 24, 2020

Antarctica: What Happens If the "Doomsday" Glacier Collapses?, Just Have a Think, March 15, 2020

"Planet of the Humans" Review: Contrarian Eco-Doc From the Michael Moore Stable, by Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, April 22, 2020

Thorium: Is it the Future of Clean Energy, Just Have a Think, January 26, 2020

And now the documentary:

Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans | Full Documentary | Directed by Jeff Gibbs

Here's the commentary: "Planet of the Humans" Earth Day Live Stream w/ Michael Moore, Jeff Gibbs and Ozzie Zehner


 Photo: Ahmed Zayan