The new documentary on the future of our planet, executive produced by Michael Moore, fails on a number of fronts. But believers in green growth could still learn from it, writes teicherj.
Planet of the Humans
What follows is a condemnation of the characters who, in Gibbs’s view, have brought the planet — and the human species — to the brink of catastrophe. But precious little of Gibbs’s ire is reserved for the fossil-fuel companies who lied about climate change for decades, their stooges in government or the rapacious industries intent on commoditising every last inch of the natural world.
He’s also fond of trespassing and catching interviewees on the fly. That posture, unfortunately, doesn’t always square with reality. In fact, the film elevates quite a few misrepresentations about the renewable-energy industry by leaning on old footage, antiquated statistics and blatantly false technological claims. It then extrapolates from those distortions to make some of the same flawed arguments popular among eco-fascists, climate deniers, and fossil-fuel industry apologists.
Case in point: scientists now advocate mining the deep ocean floor for metals needed for “civilisation to become more sustainable”. Such alarming realities could have inspired Gibbs to speak with some leftist activists who oppose growth, including many members of the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, and the Democratic Socialists of America. But with the exception of a brief interview with the scholar Vandana Shiva, Gibbs lets those voices go unheard.
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