Michael Moore's latest film provokes backlash for attacking green energy activists

April 29, 2020, 2:24 PM


Stop killer wind turbines before more birds die? (Film still: Rumble Media)

A one-man controversy magnet attracts new daggers. Michael Moore, the third rail of public policy documentaries, creates sparks with "Planet of the Humans," an online film attacking the green movement and its embrace of renewable energy.

The presentation, with the Michigan filmmaker serving as executive producer, "takes a harsh look at how the environmental movement has lost the battle through well-meaning but disastrous choices," a promotional blurb says.  

The 1-hour, 40-minute film, posted in full on YouTube last week and shown at last summer's Traverse City Film Festival, has over 4 million online views. It provokes backlash at Vox news site, the Guardian newspaper and Heated, "a daily newsletter for people who are pissed off about the climate crisis." 

Dissenters also include Canadian author Naomi Klein, a well-known critic of corporate globalization and of capitalism. "It is truly demoralizing how much damage this film has done at a moment when many are ready for deep change," she tweets. "There are important critiques of an environmentalism that refuses to reckon with unlimited consumption + growth. But this film ain't it."

The documentary is directed by Jeffs Gibbs in a repeat collaboration with Moore. The men flip their roles from "Fahrenheit 9/11," a 2004 project about President George W. Bush and the Iraq War that Moore directed and Gibbs produced.

Excerpts from this week's takedowns:

'A gift to Big Oil' -- Vox

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. ... This film ... peddles falsehoods. ...

"Planet of the Humans" has sowed confusion at a time when we need clarity on the climate crisis.

My only hope is that this film will be buried, and few will watch it or remember it. Much like fossil fuels, it would be best left underground.

-- Leah C. Stokes, author and politcal scientist at the University of California-Santa Barbara 

'Distortions, half-truths and lies' -- The Guardian

"Planet of the Humans" has provoked a furious reaction from scientists and campaigners, who have called for it be taken down. ...

A letter written by Josh Fox, who made the documentary "Gasland," and signed by various scientists and activists, has urged the removal of "shockingly misleading and absurd" film for making false claims about renewable energy. "Planet of the Humans" "trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points" that question the affordability and reliability of solar and wind energy, the letter states, pointing out that these alternatives are now cheaper to run than fossil fuels such as coal.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist and signatory to Fox’s letter, said the film includes "various distortions, half-truths and lies" and that the filmmakers "have done a grave disservice to us and the planet by promoting climate change inactivist tropes and talking points."


Michael Moore, Flint native and Traverse City resident (Photo: Facebook)

'A lazy college freshman' -- Heated

"Planet of the Humans" reminded me more of an argumentative essay from a lazy college freshman—as if, after a few hours of studying, he realized there wasn’t enough evidence to support the argument he chose for the assignment. But he was so wedded to the original idea, and didn’t want to waste the hours of work he did, so he overcompensated by being an overly aggressive narrator instead of starting over with a new argument. …

I literally couldn't tell who half the people in the documentary were or where they worked, because the documentary never told me. …

The weirdly misleading nature of this thing totally explains why it’s on YouTube, nor hosted by Netflix or Hulu or Amazon, or shown in theaters, or released in partnership with a credible news organization.

-- Emily Atkin, Washington, D.C. writer and founder of Heated newsletter



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