“We are losing the battle to stop climate change because we are following environmental leaders…who’ve sold out the green movement to wealthy interests and corporate America,” claims filmmaker Jeff Gibbs.
His new documentary, Planet of the Humans, premiered on the internet today, Earth Day. Michael Moore of Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 is the executive producer. Gibbs, a collaborator with Moore and self-proclaimed lifelong environmentalist, is writer, producer and director.
A belief that solar panels and windmills would save us
A release for the film says it “takes a harsh look at how the environmental movement has lost the battle through well-meaning but disastrous choices, including the belief that solar panels and windmills would save us, and by giving in to the corporate interests of Wall Street.” Its producers suggest, “No amount of batteries are going to save us.”
“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,” says Moore, who wants to launch “a new environmental uprising.”
The filmmaker suggests that the environmental movement’s “techno-fixes” are “too little, too late.”
The pv magazine film review
The movie, written by an avowed environmentalist, is a screed against solar power, wind power, biomass, hydrogen fuel, ethanol, EVs, and a case for the general unsuitability of renewables as a replacement for fossil fuels.
The film is also a screed against Al Gore, Richard Branson, Vinod Khosla, Sierra Club, Goldman Sachs, Bill McKibben, and Obama’s green energy efforts — for their profit motives and mixed allegiances. The film claims, “The takeover of the environmental movement by capitalism is now complete” and that control of the environmental movement must be taken back from the billionaires.
The film’s narrator and author reveals that solar and wind farms require land on which to operate, that solar panels don’t perform well without sunlight, and that building wind turbine arrays requires substantial amounts of concrete, steel and fiberglass. Additionally, the silicon used in most solar panels requires enormous amounts of power to produce. All of this is true.
The film offers a succession of talking heads, all bemoaning renewables — although there is not a grid scientist or energy expert among them. Anthropologist Nina Jablonski says, “Seeking technological fixes is just going to lead us to another level of catastrophe,” and author Richard Heinberg is “getting the uneasy feeling that green energy is not going to save us.”
Producer of the film, Ozzie Zehners, says it’s a dangerous illusion to believe “that solar and wind are somewhat different than fossil fuels.” The film claims that solar relies on “the most toxic and most industrial processes ever created,” and equates grading land for a windfarm with mountaintop coal removal.
Getting solar all wrong
It’s difficult to take the film seriously on any topic when it botches the solar portion so thoroughly. Although the film was released in 2020, the solar industry it examines, whether through incompetence or venality, is from somewhere back in 2009.
The film reports on a solar installation in Michigan with PV panels rated at “just under 8 percent” conversion efficiency. It’s difficult to identify the brand of panel in the film (Abound?) — but that efficiency is from another solar era.
The film pillories the Ivanpah thermal solar plant and SEGS, the original solar thermal power plant in Daggett, California, but fails to distinguish between overachieving photovoltaic solar and laggard thermal solar.
The film ignores the plunging cost of solar and its steadily increasing price advantage over coal and natural gas — as well as the similar trajectory of battery storage. It is plain wrong on renewables not displacing fossil fuels and it might be right in its excoriation of ethanol and biofuels.
This film is really about limiting population growth
If the filmmakers don’t believe renewables such as wind and solar are the answer, what do they believe?
Are they oil and gas supporters? It’s not clear. Nuclear proponents? Not clear, although Mike Shellenberger, nuclear advocate and renewables detractor, endorses the film.
The filmmakers don’t offer a plan to alter our energy course, but they certainly make population a theme.
They quote Heiger in the film, “There are too many human beings using too much, too fast.” Nina Jablonski called population growth “the herd of elephants in the room.” Another interviewed anthropologist spoke of population crashes.
They ask, “Can a single species that’s come to dominate the entire planet be smart enough to voluntarily limit its own presence? Removed from the debate is the only thing that might save us: getting a grip on our out-of-control human presence and consumption. Why is this not the issue? Because that would be bad for profits, bad for business.”
The film is long on criticism but offers no solution other than a vague non-capitalist pastoral alternative along with a bleak, harrowing final scene.
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If this film drives the point that our unsustainable population is the real root cause for our present condition then I would give it a high rating. You won’t be hearing this other “inconvenient truth” message from any of our business, political, or religious “leaders”.
Excellent review. One additional point — the film purports to criticize the clean energy movement but fails to mention — not even once — the leading proposal of the movement, the Green New Deal, that provides a roadmap to achieve 100% clean energy. Maybe that’s because a majority of the film never gets past the year 2010.
It fails to mention that countries with high birth rates are poor and have very low carbon emissions. Countries with low birth rates but massive consumption rates have the highest emissions.
Consumption is the problem.
“[The film reveals] that solar panels don’t perform well without sunlight” gave me a laugh this morning, Eric! Based on your review, the rest of it sounds questionable at best. Malthusian and limits-to-growth theories were debunked a long time ago, and ignore the facts that much of our current situation is driven from both over-consumption by a relatively small portion of global population and massive income inequality. Blaming renewables is barking up the wrong tree. I would hope the film at least provides some realistic and practical solutions to overpopulation. Otherwise, promoting this film in the midst of a global pandemic is very troubling indeed.
“The movie, written by an avowed environmentalist, is a screed against solar power, wind power, biomass, hydrogen fuel, ethanol, EVs, and a case for the general unsuitability of renewables as a replacement for fossil fuels.”
When one “conveniently” ignores the solar PV and ability of wind generation now to generate a more reliable source of electricity misses the point of “disruptive technology”. In 2000, the U.S. coal fired electricity generation was at 51%, by 2020 we have been reported to be around 24% coal fired generation. Natural gas turbines are popular right now, yet alternative energy with energy storage is fast becoming more cost effective and more useful, when non-fueled power can be saved and used later on. This is an outdated to the point of moronic argument that is “so last decade” and not as relevant as he seems to “think” it is. When the Corporate “hounds” realize they need to up their game and start using their very products to create a micro-grid using solar PV and or wind generation with large scale energy storage to run the manufacturing process, then alternative energy products will be manufactured using “non-fueled” generation, reducing over head costs and allowing a large commercial or industrial plant’s micro-grid able to sell grid services to the local grid and have another revenue stream in off economic times. The (same) logic can be applied to the “recycling” of these very components when the end of life is reached. Use solar PV and or wind to recycle products into raw materials or reconstitute into useful manufactured products.
“Removed from the debate is the only thing that might save us: getting a grip on our out-of-control human presence and consumption.”
I believe there are some very concrete ways to limit human consumption:
(A) Using public transit, walk or bike whenever possible.
(B) Eat a starch based, whole food diet with minimal or no animal products.
(C) Generally live a low consumption lifestyle, use kindle books or the library instead of buying new paperbooks and magazines, shop at Goodwill and other secondhand places, etc.
(D) Encourage others to take up minimalism as a lifestyle.
(E) Politically, support policies that accomplish A-C, such as ending government subsidies for animal agriculture and oil, better public transit, a value added tax to minimize consumption of tangible goods that involve pollution.
Your points A and D are suspect. A is not showing so well in population dense public transportation centered cities like San Francisco and New York City during this Corona virus-19 period. Stay at home while doing electronic socialization is about as ‘minimalist’ as it’s going to get. Her name was Patricia Dowd, she died of Corona Virus complications on February 6, 2020 in California, before the CDC declared it had hit the U.S. since being found in China in November of 2019. So, from some of what is known about this virus, one (can) have it for at least 14 days before signs appear. Patricia Dowd was infected in the Bay area somewhere around the middle of January 2020. Who knows where “victim zero” was and for how long did they have the virus and were infectious before it found Patricia Dowd. With further “study” of deaths in California since last year, it will probably be found that there were people in Mid to late December who “died” from heart failure that actually had the Corona virus and died from blood clotting problems during or after the virus.
Pros and Cons Covington, it’s (never) as simple as “moderation in all things”.
So, think long and hard about Patricia Dowd, when you pundit population dense stacked human “living space”/storage in Metropolises across the nation. Pundit enclosed public transportation, with sardine like human stacking and vector transmission.
I saw the film today and have to say this. Up to 60% of Europe’s “renewable energy” now comes from Biomass. A great deal of this is from U.S. and Canadian forest harvest because the forests of Europe cannot provide the volume of pellets or wood chip. “True” renewable energy is a must, but the accounting fraud of burning trees and calling it carbon neutral has to stop. To destroy ANY carbon sink is a backward step. What I also took from the film was not so much population, but the level of consumption in western industrialised societies, and now Asian economies as they “develop”. This has been recognised since the Rio Earth Summit 1992 (Chapter 4), but nothing has been done, this, for me is the elephant in the room.
They definitely berated solar PV in the hype documentary. No mention of the new dynamic duo that resi solar+storage truly represent and how decentralized power is now creating much more reliable power. No mention of Enphase Ensemble, microinverters, AC panels like Solaria’s new PowerXT™ 400-Watt with integrated Enphase IQ™7A micro. No mention of IQ™8 which represents the advent of grid-agnostic solar and the world’s first microgrid-based solar PV that can operate without storage. Just a lot of doom and gloom. All I have to say to Moore and company is that my 20,000-Watt AC microinverter system is 100% reliable, safe and generates about $500 a year in income and no utility bill. Solar works, and as I recommend installing as much Enphase solar+storage as you possibly can. Now you can take a string of 11 AC panels and generate over 4kW with just a single branch circuit. That number is only headed higher as we head towards 500-Watt panels and 420-Watt Enphase IQ™ microinverters. And the cost is headed lower.
I just commented in the film’s YouTube that the rig behind the Earth Day concert had a sign stating it had 60 modules rated at 350WDC each, and less than ten seconds later a guy was claiming this 18,300-watt rig could only power a 1200-watt toaster. I think there are a lot of good points to make about the problems with the green supply side, as there are in any supply-side economics. Of course our efforts also include green building precisely to reduce consumption of energy. One thing about which the global pandemic has been making quite dramatic headlines is the rapid clearing of smog-choked skies above urban areas with subdued economic activity, particularly of tailpipe emissions. I think this film is one important input into a conversation we will be having about building communities which require less road time, and also of population. Though as I mentioned in my YouTube comment, capitalism may yet solve that problem itself, as a crop of debt-hobbled college graduates is going to have yet one more reason not to want to reproduce the working class, and as Bernie’s own statistics attested, it’s a generation which may well be right and ready to take a crack at doing socialism better than it has previously been done. Innovation happens politically as well as technologically after all, and it looks like that has to be a core part of avoiding or at least mitigating the coming troubles.
Yeah, either this guy doesn’t really know what his system is outputting in reality or is lying through his ‘tooth’. The problem a lot of folks don’t seem to understand upfront is “what do you expect from your system”, “where do you see your system in the future”. Surges in electrical, electronics devices creates the (maximum) draw on one’s home circuit breaker panel. How (many) loads come on at once and what these loads are, makes a big difference of what it takes to power one’s home. Air conditioning units are notoriously high surge appliances. Most A/C circuits are protected by 50 or 60Amp circuit breakers, this is right around 15kW, maybe a little more surge on unit start up. IF one opens the Circuit breaker panel up on their homes, they may see a 200Amp service panel. In many of today’s all electric homes, you will find (many) services protected by 15 Amp to 20 Amp circuit breakers with the “odd” 30 Amp to 60 Amp ‘dual’ circuit breakers. High surge items like hot water heaters, ovens and stove cook tops, air conditioning unit(s) and maybe all electric heating units all have double poll high current circuit breakers in the panel. Now if you could plug something into every outlet in the house and turn (all) of the loads going into that circuit breaker panel, you’d find the 200Amp house main tripping pretty regularly. The reality is after the big surge, most items settle down to a much lower rate after initial turn on. In reality a house 200 Amp circuit breaker panel is “servicing” from less than 20 Amps to around 100 Amps (most) of the time. The industry over time is supporting the Energy Star initiative when new appliances are introduced into the marketplace. Newer air conditioning units are beginning to use Voltage and Current regulating devices like (VFD)s to address high current surges during turn on. Ramping gains more useful current use of one’s online solar PV system when not having to deal with high initial surges to get to operating speed.
I submit that this “unhappy” guy with the 18.3kWp system that can barely “run” a toaster, has not effectively done an (inventory) of all of the appliances he has, what their surge is and when do they turn on. Even on a 200Amp house panel, if you have three girls turning on three blow dryers, someone turning on the stove, a washing machine calling for hot water from an “on demand” water heater system and the air conditioning and refrigerator kicks on at the same time, you will at least see the house lights dim. What (most) people don’t do is set up a power monitoring device directly to the house circuit breaker panel and it’s two 120VAC busses. Go around to all of the large surge loads and cycle them on and off, look for the surge, the nominal running power and the device (off) load, if there is one. (IF) one does the ‘rough’ calculations of solar PV system and house loads, one is looking at right at 48KWp for a 200Amp panel. Most of the time you are using from 1.1kW to 24kW, it’s the individual (device) surge power that makes solar PV ‘seem’ underpowered. If one looks at the “power budget” of all online appliances, then compares this power rating compared to Energy Star appliances, one would see just how much Energy Star appliances can do for their daily energy needs.
The are better and more accurate ways to pillar green energy than on outdated energy life cycle costs. Showing the sand extraction business used to make the concrete, or the ore mining business would have been an alternative. The ecological cost to convert our current society to green energy will be immense. That’s the story, but it’s hard to convince people in rich areas, when they are benefiting from mining of poorer areas. There was a big push back on the new transmission lines needed to move wind energy from west Texas and the Oklahoma panhandle to eastern areas, as the flyover parts of the country get ugly transmission towers with no local benefit. Instead, he has a movie filed with mis-information, and his real message gets lost.
No where in the article or the comments does the term “externalities” appear, but that is the core of “Planet”. The film mentions it a couple of times, alludes to it more often, but still does not fully address the complication. Contrary to commentary here, Malthus is right; moreover, we are getting closer to his conclusion as we ignore the externalities of energy production (eg., carbon-sink forest destruction for biomass fuel). Our only future is one of increased localization: less travel, and that by train only (cf. the highway metrics); more consumables made near-at-hand; and much less material in our lives.
Having taught environmental ethics and been and activist since 1970, I can sincerely say that “Planet of the Humans” is the most honest eco film made. The objection and resistance to it is only the trauma of recognition of culpability. Honest assessment knows that Gibbs has defined our plight better than any so far.
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Whoa, wait, you have been an environmental “ethicist” for (50) years? How’s that working out for ya’?
Since your ethics have been ‘finely’ tuned over 50 years, what is it you have (done) to reduce your footprint, take responsibility for your daily energy use, stuff like that. What we have DONE will be the legacy to the next generation. What we ‘talk’ about is lost to the passing of time and the introduction of technology that can solve problems of population and consumption. What we commit to infrastructure will be the legacy of generations to come.
In every place I live from now on, will have solar PV and Energy storage installed and used daily. When more automotive manufacturers go to all BEV transportation, I will get all electric vehicle(s). IF these automotive entities “allow” self BEV repair and maintenance, one would probably not have to go to a dealership ever again. These things I can DO and leave as a legacy of technology to the next generation.
I too was very disappointed in the strange message of the documentary. Why throw solar and wind in with biomass and fossil fuels? Solar energy and wind energy are free. Yes, you must have initial and sometimes ongoing fossil fuel and mineral inputs to harness them, but the final electricity produced has a much smaller carbon footprint than making electricity just with coal or gas, which by the way also require lots of initial and ongoing fossil fuel inputs to use. The “solution” of the film suggests darkly that world population must be reduced. The film plays right into the hands of the fossil fuel industry who would love to see the renewable energies discredited and themselves as the only alternative.
You’re brazenly gaslighting.
Let’s talk about just one of your lies.
Population control is not a theme of the film. It’s mentioned in passing at two moments. Nice try though.
It’s difficult to take the film seriously on any topic when it botches the solar portion so thoroughly. Although the film was released in 2020, the solar industry it examines, whether through incompetence or venality, is from somewhere back in 2009.
What is the theme of this film Paul?