I sent the film to a friend who is an environmental journalist to ask his opinion this is his reply to me.



The issue that seems to be causing most controversy is its attack on renewable energy. Mainstream env'lsts say it's outdated (renewables are getting better fast) and a recycling of anti-renewables arguments made by climate deniers and "the right"). Both of these criticisms are half true.

But they're only half true. Renewable energy, in fact all energy, and in fact all of human consumption, has environmental impacts, and the film is quite right in pointing out that renewables are not environmentally cost free - and also not entirely effective.

And what I find hilarious about the angry reactions from mainstream environmentalists and the renewables industry is that they are reacting EXACTLY as the oil or coal or forestry or automotive industries did when environmentalist filmmakers made attack movies on them.

Because the film is exactly right in seeing that renewables are big business, just as much as any other, and that the motives and business behaviour of renewable investors and builders are no different from those in "non-green" industries, and that mainstream environmentalists have indeed been co-opted into supporting renewables and turning a blind eye to many of their environmental impacts.

The film makes this point most vividly for biomass energy (aka tree-burning), but it's true for the other renewables too.

So that is, if you like, the film's "tactical" point: renewables aren't all they're cracked up to be. But it is also making a deeper "strategic" point that, as a bit of an eco-pessimist, I both agree with and disagree.

And this is that the fundamental problem of sustainability is that there are too many humans who are consuming, or if not yet then desperately want to, too much - too much stuff, too much air, too much water, too much land, too much biomass, too much everything. And in so doing we are unbalancing the world and threatening its, and our own, future.

This is obviously a "deep green" argument, it's saying that the answers can't be just cosmetic (which is what it is criticising renewables for). Rather we need a deeper reappraisal of what we're about. That Rachel Carson quote at the very end of the film said it very well - something about the need for us to seek mastery over ourselves.

I agree with this.

As an aside, this part of the film's argument has sparked an interesting counter-attack. I've read one greenie saying that a group of white men highlighting over-population is racist. And I can absolutely see this becoming a key narrative in the woke left's reaction to the film - we can all ignore it because the makers are white supremacists. It's boring and stupid, as well as false, but there you go, that's the world we're living in.

Back to the main argument and on to where I disagree. I think the film identified "capitalism" as the source of all our problems. But for me the issue is deeper and is actually about culture. i.e. what do all of us want to have and to achieve in our lives, as per the Rachel Carson quote I mentioned above.

It's fashionable left-wing orthodoxy to conflate culture and capitalism - i.e. we are all greedy for more and more stuff because capitalism makes us so. I think that's wrong, and also very very dangerous, because if you abolish markets you end up with tyranny, but without having made any change to people's desire to consume. The proof of this is in the experience of the Soviet Union, which combined a police state with horrific environmental destruction - for example they destroyed the Aral Sea to get water for agriculture, and virtually wiped out northern whale populations because the whalers were set productivity targets that meant they killed whales even when they couldn't process them.

In conclusion, and to be a bit more optimistic, what I think the film missed out is that, though all technologies are imperfect, it is possible to increase eco-efficiency substantially and indeed this is happening. e.g. the UK has something like doubled its GDP while halving its greenhouse gas emissions. And there are exciting new technologies that will help us to continue to live comfortable lives with much lower environmental impacts - e.g. nanotechnology, graphene, biotechnology, nuclear fusion.

The problem is whether technologies like these can grow faster than a rising population wanting to consume more. I think that for much of the world the answer is more no than yes, which is why large parts of the global south are seeing such widespread destruction of wild habitats and industrialisation. We in the north went through these changes decades or even centuries ago - our equivalent of orang utans were wiped out long ago.

We'll get there in the end, IMO, but before then we are going to trigger 3 degrees or so of global warming, we are going to destroy most wild habitats in Asia, Africa and South America. The whole world is going to be dominated by humans. Even very large steps towards decarbonisation in countries like the UK are going to make very little difference globally. Tiny steps towards rewilding of habitats even less so. But I'll be happy if we do our bit as a country; there's nothing else we realistically can achieve.

Michael More's new release "Planet of the Humans" documentary is just propaganda. Michael More should practice what he preaches and do with Less. Much less.

Marty wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:02 am Michael More's new release "Planet of the Humans" documentary is just propaganda. Michael More should practice what he preaches and do with Less. Much less.

Marty, your posts are really sounding like a broken record now with the anti Michael Moore diatribe.

The point is well and truly made and has polluted this topic. Not only that, this anti MM rhetoric continued on the Kim Jong Un topic on which I had to clean up a bunch of the off topic posts. I suggest desisting from any more lest it is just trolling.

Marty wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:02 am Michael More's new release "Planet of the Humans" documentary is just propaganda. Michael More should practice what he preaches and do with Less. Much less.

Why do with less if his name is More? More by name, More by nature!

phuketrichard wrote:

IraHayes wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 9:20 am

atst wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 9:13 am clean and sustainable energy is a good thing, renewable energy is supposed to be using and replanting forest not raping what forest are available. What I got from this movie is once again big business have taken a good idea fucked it up for thier quick buck.

Yes.. big business got involved... but it was all about the money for them. The problem is... there is no clean and sustainable energy.. it’s all been a myth pushed by “big businesses”...

The only solution is a very simple one. We need to consume less.

Problem being, everyone, ( especially the poor and disadvantaged) want more
so the only real solution, which wont ever happen is
population control

The Alaskan Eskimos had it correct
They knew they had limited resources and could only feed xx number so when the population reached that point, the oldest would walk off into the sunset when a new baby was born..

Currently mankind believes we have unlimited resources, which just is not true.


Marty, what are u 11?

Haven't watched it yet, but no demographer worth his salt expects world population to go over 11 billion. It's a lot more than now, but not that far away. As mentioned, women want control over their future and we'll stabilize and even fall after 10-11B. Hans Rosling used to have a nice video explaining it.

The thing about Inuit leaving old people to die is a bit misleading too. I guess I'll have to watch it myself, but the doom and gloom documentaries are rarely true. Population is an issue, but the larger one is our culture of always needing new things, new models, planned obsolescence and so on. Renewable energy isn't all bad (and we a know there's a carbon footprint to getting the raw materials needed for solar panels, it's nothing new), so I find it ludicrous that he'd even go after all of it.

I watched it last night. Very interesting but found it really depressing too. The exploitation and being sold a pup with green energy..

Made me think why some of the pro nuclear power voices seem to be louder lately. But then think of Chernobyl, Fukishima, Three Mile Island et al. And then there's that issue of disposing of nuclear waste..

I know an Ex-Navy guy that's real pro nuclear. He's been on nuke ships. Sure you can make a military reactor or a military anything safe. A Navy reactor is not a commercial reactor, but I dont totally object to nuclear. Retire the old ones though.

Thanks BKL, I'm downloading Rosling videos now. Lets see if theres more science and less drama on this topic!