For Earth Day, Michael Moore has released “Planet of the Humans”.
Sadly, with this, Moore demonstrates how not to do a quality film about important issues.
Environmental scientist Dana Nuccitelli (publications) clearly makes the case of Moore’s failure in the following twitter thread:
Basically the film presented any imperfect energy source (which is every energy source) as inherently bad. No consideration of pros vs. cons, just the cons.It's fine to look at downsides; we're already working to improve most of them. But ignoring the upside is not constructive
Moore’s work, btw, has many moments of borderline slander/libel.
Not surprisingly, Moore’s failure has been embraced by those who have long attacked renewables. And, sadly, been promoted across the media as Moore as this ‘left-wing’, man-of-the-people contrarian makes good press such as occurred with The Late Show.
Some other reactions.
The excellent Leah Stokes lays out Moore’s delivery of a “lump of coal” for Earth Day.
Economist Mark Paul identifies Moore’s philosophical grounding.
And, Jeff Nesbit has some people Moore could have spoken with.
Yeh, perhaps this would have turned out better if Moore had focused on those who know what they’re talking about.
Thursday, Apr 23, 2020 · 3:14:29 PM +00:00
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A Siegel
Like Robert Bryce's work (not that in anyway is Moore’s knowledge of energy issues as encyclopedic as libertarian, climate-dismissing Bryce’s), this film has the same fundamental flaws:
- it is too error-filled for non-educated/knowledgeable people to watch due to misdirection & embedded deceit that might not be evident as the viewer has to be knowledgeable to see the truthiness and deceit.
- For those already knowledgeable, the core thematics/points aren't news and it just takes so much effort to wade through the falsehoods and truthiness for having thoughts/perspective that are already out there in discussion.
Additionally, Moore’s truthiness and falsehood-filled product isn’t helpful because he created something that is being leveraged by climate deniers/delayers to attack (not complete, need to improve, are improving) solution paths. (For examples, see Emily Atkin’s thought-provoking The wheel of first-time climate dudes.)