By Eileen M. Pereira
Michael Moore has created a new documentary, Planet of the Human, that launched on YouTube (free) on April 21, 2020. As of May 5, the documentary (click here) has been viewed over 6.2 million times. We believe that we all need to be aware of the debate since it affects us all and requires that we all understand the high price of failing to participate in working toward a solution.
Planet of the Human starts a very timely and controversial conversation. It challenges the current “Green Movement” status quo and delivers a strong message. The film has stirred up the environmental movement with significant backlash.
Michael Moore’s stated premise when he began this project was, “Why are we addicted to fossil fuels?” To answer his question he began following the green movement and in particular, the $100 Billion President Obama delivered to jump-start green energy.
Michael Moore was interviewed by “The Hill” (click here to watch) and asked to explain points of contention over the documentary.“The real point here is it’s only your friends who can tell you when you’re messing up when you’re doing wrong,” he said. “We are the environmental movement, we’ve been involved in, Jeff [Gibbs, producer] and I, since the first Earth Day … if we can’t say to each other ‘Hey, look, if we’re not winning then why don’t we have the discussion of what we need to do.’”
In an interview with IndieWire, producer Ozzie Zehner stated, “I think the existing environmental movement is going to be the last to come around to the story in this film. They’ll continue to argue that solar cells and wind turbines are going to become more efficient and cheaper. What they miss is that it doesn’t really matter. These are based on technological processes that require fossil fuels for their construction … we’re no better off, in fact, we’re much worse off than we were when we started this 30 years ago.”
“We have ignored the warnings and instead all sorts of so-called leaders have steered us away from the real solutions that might save us,” Moore said in a statement. “This movie takes no prisoners and exposes the truth about how we have been led astray in the fight to save the planet, to the point where if we don’t reverse course right now, events like the current pandemic will become numerous, devastating and insurmountable. The feel-good experience of this movie is that we actually have the smarts and the will to not let this happen — but only if we immediately launch a new environmental uprising.”
Bill McKibben(featured in the Documentary) has written a lengthy article published by Rolling Stone Magazine, challenging Moore and the film. (Click here.)
Other publications which offer criticism include Post Carbon Institute, Physics World, Common Dreams, and The New Yorker:Bill Mckibben’s most recent position on BioMass
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