Michael Moore has in the past made a large number of very highly respected documentaries, indeed he has won awards for some of these. As such, as latest the Planet of the humans was highly anticipated by many people.
This is not meant to be a full review of the documentary, as there have been many far more qualified people who have already done this. I am really going to highlight the problems and suggest that you look at them yourself and be fully informed when you are engaged on these by climate change deniers.
While it does not push climate change denial it does bring back up arguments that have been scientifically debunked years ago, and and more stupidly he points out problems with solar panels and electric cars by looking at examples of these from more than a decade ago.
This is frankly unacceptable. What has happened to the solar industry in the last decade? The prices of solar have fallen dramatically, the longevity is improved and the efficiency of the panels that can be reached is dramatically higher (though the most recent advances such as Insolights panels are yet to reach the market). He attacks renewable power generation suggesting that fossil fuels always produces less carbon emissions than these sources; solar panels produce roughly 26 times as much power in their life than it takes in fossil fuels to create them, with windpower this number is 44 times- indeed in the UK the amount of Carbon released due to creating electricity has fallen by 50% since 2010 as a result of these renewable sources coming online. He then talks about the need for peaker plants, plants that remain on standby to be used when demand is too high. These are all fossil fuel plants generally so he argues that there for the greed is not being cleaned.
The documentary dismisses the idea that in the future batteries will be able to to remove the need for peaker plants by looking at the amount of battery that was in place at the time. Look at the integration of any new idea and it shows how stupid this position is. The documentary is arguing that as at the moment we have very small amount of battery there is no way the batteries could take over from peaker plants, as though the number of batteries being made will not increase as this becomes the more important part of our grid.
There are only coverage of an electric car is a Chevrolet volt from a number of years ago. The problems with this is made by pointing out that this particular Chevrolet volt is being charged from the power in a state which at that time 95% coal to create it’s electricity. Now there is several stupid things about this
- That state has cleaned up it’s grid since
- electric cars are significantly more efficient uses of the energy they have, as such in almost all situations and electric car will use its power more efficiently than a fossil fuel engine
- Chevrolet volt is by no means the most energy efficient electric car, the advantages with the most recent electric cars are even more stark.
This also failed to note the fact that many people who buy an electric car often then put solar panels on their roof. An electric car driven from home produced solar has a 0g of carbon per mile at least in operation. Giving analysis showing that creating electric cars and fossil fuel cars is not usually different this means the overall carbon footprint of a car is far lower than a fossil fuel car. There is also the constant argument that any renewable power creation source should not have a carbon footprint to create, and therefore because solar panels and wind turbines emit carbon to be created they are not clean and therefore should not ever be used. He also spends a long time railing against biomass suggesting this is not green because it emits carbon dioxide, yet misses the point that if the forests are replanted, this carbon is re-absorbed. He also suggests over and over that if people working to protect the environment deal in any way with people who don’t share their views, they are tainted and nothing they do or say has any meaning.
While Michael Moore makes it clear that he is concerned about the environment too these failures are too significant to ignore.
Michael Moore finishes film by suggesting that the only way to save the Planet is dramatic population reduction. Given the faults earlier on, it would be hard to support his conclusions, however the bigger issue is that even if he was correct this is a solution that can only take place over many decades or a century. This is far too slow for what the planet needs and would be far too late to save the Polar Ice caps.
It seems unfortunate that given the timing of this documentary release, it is likely to be watched by more people because cinemas are shut and so it’s been released free on YouTube, that it was watched by more people than anything else he is created as it clearly is some of his is worst work so far. It also seems to have upset everyone, with people trying to save the planet (often disregarded as lefties) saying that their efforts are worse than useless, and the right saying air and water it’s cleaner so what’s the fuss.
This article was written having watched the film and done my own research on the subject it talks about. Any views are my own but I would encourage readers to watch it it and look up anything that sounds wrong, as much of it is either out of date and therefore factually incorrect, or are views of individual people and not facts