Yes, another blog entry about "Planet of the Humans."
Maybe it is excessive. But you must understand that I have identified as an enthusiastic environmentalist for decades, having joined the environmental club at my high school in the early nineties, and then joined the environmental club at my college later on, eventually working my way to becoming president. I believed all of this time, so seeing a grimmer reality, and seeing that green energy was not all that it is advertised as being, was very troubling to me.
That movie kind of produced a mini crisis within me.
You see, up to this point, I would definitely have considered myself a strong supporter of environmentalism.
But now, even though I still would obviously support a clean environment, it would be a lie to suggest that my faith in what was known to be the popular environmental movement was not shaken. Admittedly, my faith in Al Gore was questionable for some time now. But Bill McKinnon? Robert F. Kennedy? I had believed in them, and they both proved to be very disappointing. And the whole alternative energy movement itself, also, is something that, at the very least, feels like it will need to scrutinized and questioned intensely from here on in.
Oh, I know, they retorted that Moore's new movie is outdated, and either exaggerates, or is misleading. Seriously, though, if they are guilty of misleading the public like that, and have been proven to flip flop on environmental stances before, to waffle on key issues, then why should we believe them now? After all, what else are they going to say in their defense, other than to try and discredit Moore and the others involved in this movie?
The truth of the matter feels closer to what Moore was arguing. That the environmental movement is not what it is cracked up to be. That modern industrialism, which really helped get us into the problems we are now facing to begin with, will not save us.
Also, that the real problem that we are facing, and which they never seem to address, because their is no profit in it for them, is overpopulation. That indeed feels much closer to the truth, and that, to borrow Gore's own words, is very inconvenient for them. Because they cannot make billions. Nor can they come up with seemingly easy and quick solutions for all of us to believe in.
Yes, I got sucked into believing that these "clean" alternative energies could truly help us preserve,m at least mostly, our current way of life. But it is deceptive, because our way of life is the problem to begin with, of course.
Part of me still wanted some more positive answer than that. Part of me still wants to believe that some of these figures recognized as environmental leaders truly do have the best of intentions, and are not merely posing as concerned leaders in the field. However, the main argument that Moore and Jeff Gibbs made, that the human population explosion had stressed this limited planet beyond the breaking point already, and that we humans need to get ourselves under control first and foremost, rings true. As I mentioned in yesterday's blog entry, this theme echoes what Daniel Quinn, one of my favorite authors, argued for decades. We are growing much too fast, and human mass is replacing other kind of biomass, all over the world. That includes other animal species, as well as forests. Everything else has to make room for us, for our wants, and not just our needs. That is the core problem, and it is not some myth of clean green energy that is going to save us from a dire fate if we fail to control ourselves, and find some way to reign in the population explosion.
Still, it was interesting to read and watch what others were saying. Some scoffed at the very notion that this movie could have an impact on the environmental movie, and basically suggested that anyone who would fall for the tricks and what they claimed to be pseudo-science by Moore and Gibbs simply cannot be all that intelligent. In other words, these were the high-minded liberal elites looking down their noses at peasants, who could never be nearly as sophisticated as them.
The thing is, I think of myself as fairly intelligent. And while I am not the most scientifically informed person in the word, it again astounds me that none of these people ever seem to actually look at the population explosion and view it with any serious trepidation or seeming alarm. Green technology seems to be their cure all. But my own intuition, and the simple mathematical logic of just how seriously the human population explosion has completely transformed this world and put it on the brink of real extinction, feels much closer to the truth. People criticized Daniel Quinn when he made these arguments, and they are criticizing Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs now. They claimed that Quinn was playing God, and are claiming that Moore is putting his own professional reputation over an environmental movement that, to my understanding, he has always been a vocal supporter of.
Besides, the critics all repeated the same theme. Michael Moore is uninformed, that he is punching downward, trying to make a splash and reinforce a reputation for being edgy. They all blasted the science, claiming that it was seriously outdated, and that much has changed, as if this movie had been made decades ago. In fact, the plants mentioned that are labeled as part of this "green energy" movement are still active and still burning biomass, or the failed Ivanpah Solar Array in the Mojave desert, which is hardly ancient history. I remember driving by that in 2016 while on vacation with my son, and feeling excited about this ultra-modern clean energy plant, unaware of how much damage to the environment it had actually caused, or how much of a failure it would shortly be regarded as, despite having opened only a couple of years earlier. The Earth Day celebration in Washington that was to promote green energy was from 2015, which again, is hardly ancient history. Also, they took exception to how these environmental leaders were portrayed as transparently greedy.
Yet, none of them seemed to concede that maybe the movie made a point in exposing the hypocrisy and professed ignorance of self-proclaimed leaders in the environmental movement. They seemed fine with Al Gore's contradictory actions, and his hunger to make more and more money. They seemed comfortable with the involvement of huge corporations with a well-known reputation for being big polluters. They failed to answer some of the core questions, such as whether machines made by industrial civilization could save us from industrial civilization. And most importantly, time and time again, they failed to even mention the main argument about overpopulation, which the few critics who did mention it seemed to dismiss as silly or irrelevant. One of them dared to suggest that Moore was being an elitist, that the poor would not do environmental damage, really, but that the wealthy are the one who cause the most damage, as if Moore had in any way been defending that, or that a growing number of people in formerly strictly poor nations like China and India - both of which have enormous populations that are still growing - is somehow not a major problem facing us. It's not like the smog in the major cities in those countries do not exist, or are impossible to see. Instead, they merely dismissed the movie as shallow and a virtual disinformation campaign.
So, I looked for what actual scientists would say about the movie, how they might react. But what I got were a bunch of self-proclaimed environmentalists, who recited facts that the movie already had addressed, such as the closing of coal plants, and how renewable energy plants were replacing them increasingly in the United States. However, the movie already pulled the curtain of what those “renewable” energy plants really were. And let’s face it: biomass is still burning at those plants today, even though they are still labeled as clean and renewable energy.
And again, nowhere did it seem like the overpopulation explosion was taken seriously. They kept repeating the same concern: that Michael Moore was effectively just a troublemaker, trying to enhance his own reputation as some kind of a rebel. That this film will derail the green energy movement. None of these reviews expressed concern at all at what Moore’s movie actually reveals: that green energy relies heavily on fossil fuels, and that it finds itself in bed with big corporate polluters. That wood is a renewable energy source, and forests are being cut down all over the world – in North America, in the Amazon in South America, in rainforests in Africa and Indonesia – and being used as energy, or exported to be used as energy. Germany’s wind energy miracle is also exposed, as it is revealed that, in fact, Germany is the European nation that uses the most coal.
Again and again and again, green energy is exposed as an illusion.
As I mentioned yesterday, there are many who want this movie pulled from Youtube. Because, you know, censorship always works in important debates. If this movie were so easily discredited, then these people would not view it as such a threat. After all, let's state the obvious: those who do not believe in science, much less environmentalism, are not likely to watch this movie, much less give it serious consideration. Yet, critics of the movie seem to lump the likely viewing audience in with ignorant Trump supporters, and that just seems like elitist self-interest. Many of these people champion freedom of speech and of the press, yet demand that a movie like this gets pulled as soon as it questions their beliefs and actions? Seriously?
If they are in the right, then state your case. If you are worried that environmental leaders are made to look foolish or greedy (or both), then let them defend themselves and their actions. If the science in this movie is so flawed, then definitively contradict them with scientists. If the real problem is not overpopulation, then explain why overpopulation should not be a concern. If the problems and questions raised in this movie are not legitimate, then answer them with compelling arguments. In short, take the challenge at it's face value, and defend your beliefs and actions. If not, if they claim that this is just so ridiculous and just not worthy of their attention, they are reinforcing their intellectually dishonest approach. After all, Bill McKibbens hardly comes across as either responsible or informed in this movie. Frankly, his Rolling Stone article fails to take full ownership of these kinds of contradictions and flip flops. Al Gore also looks bad in this movie, and his actions increasingly look transparently self-serving. Robert Kennedy, Jr., also betrays his own faith, speaking privately to corporate interests in a much different manner than he does publicly. If these glaringly obvious issues are not taken seriously be the environmental movement after such a huge movie has exposed them, then how can anyone else take the environmental movement itself seriously?
Part of me still wanted some more positive answer than that. Part of me still wants to believe that some of these figures recognized as environmental leaders truly do have the best of intentions, and are not merely posing as concerned leaders in the field. However, the main argument that Moore and Jeff Gibbs made, that the human population explosion had stressed this limited planet beyond the breaking point already, and that we humans need to get ourselves under control first and foremost, rings true. As I mentioned in yesterday's blog entry, this theme echoes what Daniel Quinn, one of my favorite authors, argued for decades. We are growing much too fast, and human mass is replacing other kind of biomass, all over the world. That includes other animal species, as well as forests. Everything else has to make room for us, for our wants, and not just our needs. That is the core problem, and it is not some myth of clean green energy that is going to save us from a dire fate if we fail to control ourselves, and find some way to reign in the population explosion.
Still, it was interesting to read and watch what others were saying. Some scoffed at the very notion that this movie could have an impact on the environmental movie, and basically suggested that anyone who would fall for the tricks and what they claimed to be pseudo-science by Moore and Gibbs simply cannot be all that intelligent. In other words, these were the high-minded liberal elites looking down their noses at peasants, who could never be nearly as sophisticated as them.
The thing is, I think of myself as fairly intelligent. And while I am not the most scientifically informed person in the word, it again astounds me that none of these people ever seem to actually look at the population explosion and view it with any serious trepidation or seeming alarm. Green technology seems to be their cure all. But my own intuition, and the simple mathematical logic of just how seriously the human population explosion has completely transformed this world and put it on the brink of real extinction, feels much closer to the truth. People criticized Daniel Quinn when he made these arguments, and they are criticizing Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs now. They claimed that Quinn was playing God, and are claiming that Moore is putting his own professional reputation over an environmental movement that, to my understanding, he has always been a vocal supporter of.
Besides, the critics all repeated the same theme. Michael Moore is uninformed, that he is punching downward, trying to make a splash and reinforce a reputation for being edgy. They all blasted the science, claiming that it was seriously outdated, and that much has changed, as if this movie had been made decades ago. In fact, the plants mentioned that are labeled as part of this "green energy" movement are still active and still burning biomass, or the failed Ivanpah Solar Array in the Mojave desert, which is hardly ancient history. I remember driving by that in 2016 while on vacation with my son, and feeling excited about this ultra-modern clean energy plant, unaware of how much damage to the environment it had actually caused, or how much of a failure it would shortly be regarded as, despite having opened only a couple of years earlier. The Earth Day celebration in Washington that was to promote green energy was from 2015, which again, is hardly ancient history. Also, they took exception to how these environmental leaders were portrayed as transparently greedy.
Yet, none of them seemed to concede that maybe the movie made a point in exposing the hypocrisy and professed ignorance of self-proclaimed leaders in the environmental movement. They seemed fine with Al Gore's contradictory actions, and his hunger to make more and more money. They seemed comfortable with the involvement of huge corporations with a well-known reputation for being big polluters. They failed to answer some of the core questions, such as whether machines made by industrial civilization could save us from industrial civilization. And most importantly, time and time again, they failed to even mention the main argument about overpopulation, which the few critics who did mention it seemed to dismiss as silly or irrelevant. One of them dared to suggest that Moore was being an elitist, that the poor would not do environmental damage, really, but that the wealthy are the one who cause the most damage, as if Moore had in any way been defending that, or that a growing number of people in formerly strictly poor nations like China and India - both of which have enormous populations that are still growing - is somehow not a major problem facing us. It's not like the smog in the major cities in those countries do not exist, or are impossible to see. Instead, they merely dismissed the movie as shallow and a virtual disinformation campaign.
So, I looked for what actual scientists would say about the movie, how they might react. But what I got were a bunch of self-proclaimed environmentalists, who recited facts that the movie already had addressed, such as the closing of coal plants, and how renewable energy plants were replacing them increasingly in the United States. However, the movie already pulled the curtain of what those “renewable” energy plants really were. And let’s face it: biomass is still burning at those plants today, even though they are still labeled as clean and renewable energy.
And again, nowhere did it seem like the overpopulation explosion was taken seriously. They kept repeating the same concern: that Michael Moore was effectively just a troublemaker, trying to enhance his own reputation as some kind of a rebel. That this film will derail the green energy movement. None of these reviews expressed concern at all at what Moore’s movie actually reveals: that green energy relies heavily on fossil fuels, and that it finds itself in bed with big corporate polluters. That wood is a renewable energy source, and forests are being cut down all over the world – in North America, in the Amazon in South America, in rainforests in Africa and Indonesia – and being used as energy, or exported to be used as energy. Germany’s wind energy miracle is also exposed, as it is revealed that, in fact, Germany is the European nation that uses the most coal.
Again and again and again, green energy is exposed as an illusion.
As I mentioned yesterday, there are many who want this movie pulled from Youtube. Because, you know, censorship always works in important debates. If this movie were so easily discredited, then these people would not view it as such a threat. After all, let's state the obvious: those who do not believe in science, much less environmentalism, are not likely to watch this movie, much less give it serious consideration. Yet, critics of the movie seem to lump the likely viewing audience in with ignorant Trump supporters, and that just seems like elitist self-interest. Many of these people champion freedom of speech and of the press, yet demand that a movie like this gets pulled as soon as it questions their beliefs and actions? Seriously?
If they are in the right, then state your case. If you are worried that environmental leaders are made to look foolish or greedy (or both), then let them defend themselves and their actions. If the science in this movie is so flawed, then definitively contradict them with scientists. If the real problem is not overpopulation, then explain why overpopulation should not be a concern. If the problems and questions raised in this movie are not legitimate, then answer them with compelling arguments. In short, take the challenge at it's face value, and defend your beliefs and actions. If not, if they claim that this is just so ridiculous and just not worthy of their attention, they are reinforcing their intellectually dishonest approach. After all, Bill McKibbens hardly comes across as either responsible or informed in this movie. Frankly, his Rolling Stone article fails to take full ownership of these kinds of contradictions and flip flops. Al Gore also looks bad in this movie, and his actions increasingly look transparently self-serving. Robert Kennedy, Jr., also betrays his own faith, speaking privately to corporate interests in a much different manner than he does publicly. If these glaringly obvious issues are not taken seriously be the environmental movement after such a huge movie has exposed them, then how can anyone else take the environmental movement itself seriously?
No comments:
Post a Comment