Michael Moore produced a film about climate change that's a gift to Big Oil

[comradebillyboy]

Last week marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. To celebrate the occasion, filmmaker Michael Moore dropped a new movie he produced, Planet of the Humans. In less than a week, it has racked up over 3 million views on YouTube.

But the film, directed by Jeff Gibbs, a long-time Moore collaborator, is not the climate message we’ve all been waiting for — it’s a nihilistic take, riddled with errors about clean energy and climate activism. With very little evidence, it claims that renewables are disastrous and that environmental groups are corrupt.

What’s more, it has nothing to say about fossil fuel corporations, who have pushed climate denial and blocked progress on climate policy for decades. Given the film’s loose relationship to facts, I’m not even sure it should be classified as a documentary.

snip

But this film does not grapple with these thorny questions; it peddles falsehoods. Films for Action, an online library of free progressive films, agrees with me. It briefly pulled the movie from its site, after documentary filmmaker Josh Fox wrote an open letter, co-signed by climate scientists and energy experts.

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21238597/michael-moore-planet-of-the-humans-climate-change

[HarlanPepper]

1. Moore is a dead ender POS. I knew that.

But I was surprised to learn he is an opponent of renewable energy. He really is quite a lowlife.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. I could care less about what this person thinks or does anymore. Trying to be relevent still,

when his time has long passed.

[cilla4progress]

3. I watched the film.

It was definitely a critique of the renewables industry. I don't know if it was the edits, but it was quite damning as to some of the environmental movement's heroes and icons. Portrayed them as sellouts and hypocrites.

Would love to hear a real debate between Gibbs' claims v. Gore, McKibben.

[Miguelito Loveless]

9. Ask and you shall receive

Well, Gibbs v. McKibben, not Gore.

Also, SO MANY factual errors and out of date data that the whole thing is a mess. Unfortunately, I have seen a few threads here and on DKos of people buying the BS.

I am an green power/EV advocate (unpaid) and had to stop the video repeatedly to get past screaming about errors and idiotic assumptions.

https://benwehrman.com/planet-of-the-humans-disaster/
https://ketanjoshi.co/2020/04/24/planet-of-the-humans-a-reheated-mess-of-lazy-old-myths/

I am happy to answer anyone's questions on either solar or EVs, as I have both.

[cilla4progress]

16. Super - thanks, Miguelito!

Will bookmark and study!

My layperson impression was that Gibbs is cut in the style of Moore (down to the Michigander accent!). I'm a fan of Moore, I feel he's got a lot to contribute and offers a unique, valuable vision. I also take him with a grain of salt.

[Miguelito Loveless]

19. For the record I have always enjoyed

Moore's work all the way back to Roger and Me, which is why this movie was shocking. It is literally full of climate denier talking points, the one's where they no longer deny climate change is real, but deny it can be fixed with a transition to green power and transport.

The video is correct about biomass, which is about all I can say in its favor.

[defacto7]

4. This part of this article is lie...

...it has nothing to say about fossil fuel corporations, who have pushed climate denial and blocked progress on climate policy for decades.

The video gives pretty much equal time to criticizing both the renewable industry and the fossil fuel industry but puts the central industry blame on the fossil fuel industry. It centers the real ecological problem on overpopulation.

It seems big money and pet hopes are working overtime to override data again. Are we so incapable of learning and evolving as a species? Why do we have to fight the facts because we don't like the producer or because we might actually be wrong? We're so desparate for a fix that we'll fall for the magical thinking that today's version of renewables will save us. It will not.

[rockfordfile]

13. Fossil fuel companies are the worst

He just got easily caught being a stooge for fossil fuel.
I own a electric car and it's one of the best cars that I've owned, and in the process of looking at solar panels.

[cilla4progress]

17. This.

...

[Dem2]

5. It's informative, but extremely biased and otherwise awful

No solutions offered, unless hoping for the death of humanity is a solution.

[SKKY]

6. Michael Moore has outlived his "use by" date...

...he's surplus to requirements at this point.

[Gothmog]

7. the distributor of Michael Moore's #PlanetoftheHumans is taking the film down due to misinformation

Link to tweet

[Cha]

14. Wow.. who the **** knew..

Thanks, Goth.

[sl8]

18. Films For Action's statement on why they took it down and why they put it back up:

https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/films-for-actions-statement-on-planet-of-the-humans/#.XqS8nYXbsD4.twitter

Films For Action's Statement on Planet of the Humans

Why we took it down. Why we ultimately decided to put it back up (including this note). Plus our critiques and thoughts on the film.

By Films For Action / filmsforaction.org
Apr 25, 2020

Films For Action's Statement on Planet of the Humans
Last updated 4/27 with new film resources at the bottom. Please join us in promoting #MediaLiteracy and critical engagement with the film.

When Planet of the Humans first came out, we added it to the site before watching it because we trusted Michael Moore's track record of releasing quality films that are factually accurate. After we watched it, we had issues with the film but assumed it was at least factually accurate, since Michael knows his films will be rigorously fact-checked.

We are disheartened and dismayed to report that the film is full of misinformation (1, 2, 3, 4) - so much so that for half a day we removed the film from the site.

Ultimately, we decided to put it back up because we believe media literacy, critique and debate is the best solution to misinformation.

[...]

[mathematic]

8. A lot of left wing critics make more sense when you realize their primary goal is socialism

To Moore, environmentalism is only valid within a socialist framework. If it's not socialism, it's not environmentalism.

You see this with LGBTQ issues as well, in the context of corporate support for LGBTQ causes.

All the non-class issues that naturally have broad appeal across class are simply useful bludgeons for people like Moore used to drive people towards leftism and away from liberalism. Moore is trying to co-opt environmentalism by framing both the cause of pollution and the activist response as two sides of the same capitalist coin. He's a fool to think that a "both sides serve their corporate masters" argument would hold as much sway today as it did before 2016 and before 2000.

[comradebillyboy]

11. Exactly right...

[Miguelito Loveless]

10. The gist of the film is

1) We are doomed.

2) Since it will take some fossil fuels to make the next generation of power generation/transport, they are part of the problem and therefore useless.

3) Solar/Wind/EVs can't solve our problems NOW, so why bother.

4) We are doomed.

[Beringia]

12. It is strange how DU likes to hide its head in the sand

on some issues.

Micheal Moore is not irrevelant. He does fantastic work every single day.

I find myself having to visit more leftist sites to get away from the criticism of the left on DU.

And Films for Action has the film on their website. The OP puts in a quote on how it was pulled briefly. That is right maybe briefly. But it is there now.

https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/michael-moore-presents-planet-of-the-humans/

[rockfordfile]

15. It's terrible crap and that's why it's free

[Beringia]

20. It was scheduled to be released

in theaters, but coronavirus hit. They thought it was timely to release it now.

[JI7]

21. No Wonder he Opposed Gore for President.