April 29, 2020

Paying attention to the buzz around Planet of the Humans, the new film by Michael Moore, is like standing in the middle of a three-ring circus. In ring #1 are the filmmakers, who raise critical questions about how renewable sources can power industrial society, but do so with questionable facts and mean-spirited attacks. In ring #2 are the left-wing enviros, who are barfing out lazy accusations of ecofascism and doing all they can to avoid addressing the film’s legitimate questions about population and consumption. In ring #3 are the oil-soaked, right-wing libertarians who think this film will help them keep earning and burning their way to the bank at the end of Armageddon Road. Asher, Rob, and Jason grapple with the cacophony, hash out the good and bad of the film and the response to it, and argue for an honest, messy-middle approach to the transition away from fossil fuels.

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Show Notes

• Planet of the Humans, the documentary by Jeff Gibbs and Michael Moore
• Bill McKibben’s response to the film
• Brian Kahn’s Earther review
• Richard Heinberg’s review
• Competitive Enterprise Institute essay “Hurry, See ‘Planet of the Humans,’ Before It’s Banned”
• Charles Hall answers questions about energy return on energy invested.
• Energy: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, the large-format, photo-driven book that addresses the true costs of energy
• Post Carbon Institute’s analysis of shale oil and gas https://shalebubble.org/
• Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy, the book by Richard Heinberg and David Fridley
• Short film that tells the story of Doug Tompkins
• Josh Fox calling for censorship
• The statement issued by Films for Action about taking the movie offline and then putting it back online
• Response to criticism by the film’s producers