Planet of the Humans
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"I was getting the uneasy feeling that green energy was not going to save us."--Jeff Gibbs cited in Planet of the Humans (2019) by Jeff Gibbs |
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Planet of the Humans is a 2019 American environmental documentary film written, directed, and produced by Jeff Gibbs. The film was executive produced by Michael Moore.
Moore released it on YouTube for free viewing on April 21, 2020, the eve of the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day.
The film examines the decision of mainstream environmental groups and leaders to partner with billionaires, corporations, and wealthy family foundations in the fight to save a planet said to be in crisis. The film questions whether green energy can solve the problem of society's expanding resource depletion without reducing consumption and population growth, as all existing forms of energy generation require consumption of finite resources. Centrally, the film questions whether renewable energy sources such as biomass energy, wind power, and solar energy, are as renewable as they are portrayed to be.
Synopsis
Planet of the Humans takes a critical look at the mainstream environmental movement, questioning its leaders' decision to partner with billionaires, corporations, and wealthy family foundations, and to promote renewable energy technology as the solution to climate change.
Gibbs admits to being a long-time fan of renewable energy. When Barack Obama directs billions of dollars into renewable energy, Gibbs follows the green energy movement more closely but is disappointed with his initial findings. “Everywhere I encountered green energy,” Gibbs says, “it wasn’t what it seemed.” Attending General Motors' Chevy Volt press conference in 2010, he learns that the vehicle is being charged by a fossil fuel grid. A visit to his local solar array reveals it could only meet the energy demand of 10 homes over a year. He joins a group of concerned citizens on a hike to a wind turbine construction site in Vermont and finds part of the mountainside being removed. Gibbs asks, “Can machines made by industrial civilization save us from industrialization?”
This question leads Gibbs to environmental sociologist Richard York’s study published in the journal Nature, which found renewables were not displacing fossil fuels. Gibbs also speaks with author Richard Heinberg and anthropologist Nina Jablonski on why people seek technological fixes. Gibbs then interviews Ozzie Zehner, author of Green Illusions, who reports that solar, wind, and electric vehicle technologies require mined minerals, including rare earths, and heavy industrial processes to produce – with new mines opening as demand for green technology rises.
Gibbs and Zehner travel to Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in the Mojave Desert and show a natural gas line hooked up to the facility. Gibbs speaks to a series of solar industry insiders, an electrical engineer, and a Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner about solar energy’s intermittency limitation and reliance on baseload plants. Zehner reveals that while the Sierra Club’s ‘Beyond Coal’ campaign has been successfully closing coal plants, natural gas plants were opening in their wake resulting in the overall expansion of fossil fuel use in the United States during that same time period, citing data from the U.S. Department of Energy. The film shows green tech investor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaking to an oil and gas industry group stating, “The plants that we’re building, the wind plants and the solar plants, are gas plants.”
Zehner discusses how companies including Apple and Tesla claim to run on 100% renewable energy despite remaining hooked up to the grid and reveals the Koch Brothers' involvement in green technology production. The film contains a three minute montage set to Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “The Enemy God Dances with the Black Spirits,” which shows the scale of industrial mining required to create solar, wind, and electric vehicle technology. A bulldozer is shown destroying a 500 year old yucca plant to clear the land for what became the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility. Gibbs says that solar and wind arrays last only a few decades before “you tear it down, and start all over again.”
Gibbs visits Steven Running, an ecologist from the University of Montana, who discusses planetary limits – including global fish production, agricultural land, water irrigation, and ground water. Gibbs ends the section by speaking to social-psychologist Sheldon Solomon positing whether faith in renewables could be a reflection of a fear of death.
Gibbs sneaks onto a biomass plant property in Vermont and finds that instead of burning forest residue as advertised, the plant is surrounded by whole trees. A citizen activist in Michigan reveals that her local biomass plant burns PCP and creosote-treated railroad ties shipped in from Canada as well as rubber tires, which cause black snow to appear at the adjacent elementary school. Gibbs explores the practice of universities committing to "go green" by opening biomass plants on campus, tracing the practice back to a college in Middlebury, VT endorsed by Bill McKibben. Gibbs reveals that biomass energy remains the largest percentage of renewable energy in the world. He then explores what he calls the ‘language loopholes’ that allow for the continuation of biomass around the U.S. The section ends with Gibbs, as part of a media event at the Climate March in New York City, asking environmental leaders for their stance on biomass including Van Jones, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Bill McKibben, and Vandana Shiva. Only Shiva denounces biomass & biofuels.
In the last third of the film, Gibbs explores the partnerships between mainstream environmental groups and Wall Street investors, billionaires, and wealthy family foundations. Gibbs reveals a tax return showing that the Sierra Club accepted 3 million dollars from timber investor Jeremy Grantham. McKibben is shown on stage with former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood, supporting his call to raise $40-50 trillion in green energy investments. Gibbs displays U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings of green funds promoted in divestment campaigns by 350.org's, Bill McKibben, and the Sierra Club, which show holdings in mining companies, oil and gas infrastructure, various banks including BlackRock, Halliburton, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Exxon, Chevron, Gazprom, and Enviva among others. Gibbs shows corporate formation documents indicating that Al Gore partnered with David Blood to start Generation Investment Management – a sustainability investment fund – before releasing An Inconvenient Truth. Gibbs then shows Gore lobbying Congress on behalf of the sugarcane ethanol industry in Brazil, juxtaposing footage of indigenous cultures in Brazil being evicted from their land to create more sugarcane fields.
Gibbs asserts that “the takeover of the environmental movement by capitalism is now complete,” and asks whether it has always been complete. The film shows McKibben stating that 350.org receives funding from The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. He also shows Gore in multiple interviews defending his decision to sell his American television channel, Current TV, earning him an estimated $100 million pre-tax for the deal, to Al Jazeera which is owned by the State of Qatar, an oil and gas producer. Gibbs attends an Earth Day concert celebration in Washington, DC sponsored by Toyota, Citibank, and Caterpillar, where Dennis Hayes claims the entire event is run on solar energy. Backstage, Gibbs discovers the concert is actually being run by biodiesel generators.
The film ends with Gibbs reflecting, “Infinite growth on a finite planet is suicide,” imploring the audience to take back the environmental movement from billionaires and capitalists. The final scene shows a mother and baby orangutan struggling to survive as the forest is logged and burned around them.
See also
