At the end of this year, I joined the group Solar for East, which aims to raise money to install solar panels in the school and integrate environmental awareness more into our school curriculum. We are currently at the stage wherein Grade 10s like myself and Grade 9s are being given the knowledge and experience to take over from the current group, who are all in Grade 11 now. Part of this was being encouraged to watch the documentary “Planet of the Humans”.
After some reflection and further research, I found that, although it paints with very broad brushes, it raises some important points that the environmentalist community should pay heed to. Censoring this film is not the way forward.
I acknowledge that fossil fuel lobbyists are pushing this film as saying renewable energy is useless – however, that I believe is due to the sloppy execution of the film, and how it does not make its implied points clear enough.
So what are these implied points? For me, what the film is trying to say boils down to:
- Even renewable energy sources (wind and solar) come from nonrenewable resources – we must be critical and aware of the impacts of their use
- Although renewable, biofuel burning is not a good way to generate electricity
- There is rampant misleading in major environmental organizations, with major figures end up supporting biofuels and other unsustainable/bad practices, and renewable energy often not displacing fossil fuel use as claimed
- That current usage patterns of electricity would be near impossible to meet with current renewable electricity sources
- The environmentalist movement’s focus on technological innovation is not ideal.
The general tone of the documentary is that this current style of capitalist environmentalism is not working and that laypeople are being misled. It is always important to have criticizing opinions, so I respect Michael Moore for daring to say that. At the very least, it helped me to have another perspective on my own activism, which I find really valuable.
To me, it is quite clear that the film is saying that climate action is definitely needed and that renewables are better than fossil fuels (combustion-based generation is critiqued). Ironically, it uses a heavy hand to highlight how we as a society are deluding ourselves into believing that there is one perfect answer to renewable electricity generation and that we can continue to live our wasteful lifestyles without any sacrifice.
It would be unfair to describe the film as being heavy-handed without explaining why. Firstly, the way it presents its conclusions is quite vague and makes it difficult for the audience to see its nuance. I think if I watched this a year ago, I may have seen this as supporting the view that climate action is futile. I am lucky that I have been learning more about logical analysis in my Japanese tuition. Secondly, from reading critical reviews of it, I have learned that much of the information in the documentary is outdated or incorrect. For example, in one scene, the film claims that the production typical solar panel would require more coal to manufacture it than it can replace to generate electricity. However, with modern solar technology, this is no longer the truth. There have also been complaints of the film unfairly portraying specific environmentalists, such as Bill Kibbon (the founder of 350.org). I admit I haven’t explored these inaccuracies enough, and thus I am not using the documentary as a source of statistics or case studies.
In conclusion, my biggest takeaways from the film were the following:
- To not blindly accept technology-based solutions to climate change
- To try and be more aware of greenwashing
- To be more critical of what billionaires and the elite are doing around climate change
Of course, this may all be unfounded, so I would need to do more research. But I am grateful for the film for giving me these questions.
YouTube has removed the original upload, and many call for this film to be censored. However, here is a reupload (may be taken down quickly), and here is the official trailer. I post them here for you to see because I think it is imperative that society welcomes dissenting views with a critical and open mind.