Here’s something I just wrote to a friend who praised Michael Moore’s new documentary, Planet of the Humans.
As the author of four books on renewable energy (and 9000+ blog posts on cleantech more generally), let me weigh in. The film is a patchwork of cherry-picked half-truths and ideas that are deliberately misstated or taken out of context. If this were 2012, a lot of this (but not all) would be true, but, again, at this point it’s almost entirely garbage.Viewers are told that green energy is not really green, environmentalists are hypocrites, 100% battery electric cars aren’t available, solar panels last only 10 years, solar is only in the deserts, solar destroys the environment, and there are no energy costs associated with locating, extracting, transporting, refining, and distributing fossil fuels. Every single one of the ideas is either totally incorrect or misleading.
More false impressions: no progress in energy storage or high-voltage transmission, no improvement in grid-management enabling better integration of intermittent energy sources, no growth in run-of-river hydro, geothermal or biomass, no developments in waste-to-energy, no positive motion in efficiency of solar PV and wind, no smart-grid. No progress in aneutronic fusion or other forms of nuclear energy. No new battery chemistries for electric transportation, The truth is that ALL of these sub-disciplines are getting better and cheaper every month. This film is shameful, and I would LOVE to know why Michael Moore, of all people, would put his name on it. Worst bit of false data of all: No new information on the damage that fossil fuels are doing to human health, biodiversity, ocean pH and climate stability.
In truth, we’re learning more about each one of these topics on a daily basis. In 50 – 75 years, we’re not going to have a civilization here if we don’t make a radical change in course with respect to both energy generation and land use. Of course, writing on this subject is what I do for a living, but it’s hard to believe that Michael Moore doesn’t know this almost as well as I do myself, which is why I’m so flummoxed and angry to see a hit-piece like this from him.
