[MCN] What Planet of the Apes got right : Count me amongst its critics, but most critics overlook 2 key realities it got right.

Sat May 2 09:30:28 EDT 2020

Salon MAY 1, 2020 

Why "Planet of the Humans," Michael Moore’s new film about green energy, is so controversial
SOPHIA A. MCCLENNEN <https://www.salon.com/writer/sophia_a_mcclennen>
<<salon.com/2020/05/01/why-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moores-new-film-about-green-energy-is-so-controversial/>>

EXCERPT — 2 key realities Planet of the Apes got right

4. The manufactured faith in renewable energy has distracted us from considering ways to reduce consumption.

"Planet of the Humans" asks why the environmental movement lost sight of the basic need to reduce human energy consumption <https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/11/11/Climate-Change-Realist-Face-Facts/> as a core mission. If renewable energy is not so renewable after all, then how did it come to dominate energy activism? "The reason why we are not talking about population, consumption, and the suicide of economic growth," Gibbs says, "is that it would be bad for business, especially for the cancerous form of capitalism that rules the world now hiding under a cover of green."

Techno-fixes create an illusion of helping the planet when all they do is help capitalism generate more profit, the film argues. This green illusion, as Zehner puts it, has allowed climate-concerned citizens to think that green energy is a solution. If they support it, they feel "good" and they don't have to change their patterns of consumption <https://truthout.org/articles/power-shift-away-from-green-illusions/>.

It's a basic lesson in capitalist ideology: Consumers are led to believe that their consumption doesn't do any damage. The film argues that this artifice of a "safe" way to get energy <https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/06/the-path-to-clean-energy-will-be-very-dirty-climate-change-renewables/?fbclid=IwAR2lzt-tfCt6RK5uWajY-gufRTd3vgeqiHIBJGqv01go2SWVJUe2zTAdMLs> has distracted the public from a much-needed conversation about how to reduce the energy demands of the population.

Gibbs explains that at one point the mantra of climate activism was "reduce, reuse, recycle." Yet, the idea of reducing and reusing has been sidelined as capitalism wormed its way into the green movement and convinced everyone that renewables were the answer.

5. Why can't we talk about constructively about how to reduce human footprint?

Perhaps one of the most sensitive topics raised in the film is the question of what to do about the rise in population growth and the increase in energy demands. "Planet of the Humans" makes a bold claim — that the only way to take seriously the human toll on the planet is to talk about what humans do to it.

My colleague, Penn State Anthropology professor Nina Jablonksi, who is interviewed in the film, suggests that "population growth" is the elephant in the room that few climate activists are willing to address. Then she adds that "we have to have our ability to consume reigned in, because we are not good at reigning them if there are seemingly unrestrained resources" or close to it. As long as humans believe that they have unconstrained resources, i.e. that their energy needs can be met in renewable and sustainable ways, they will refuse to limit their consumption demands.

This line of questioning has been sidelined by leftist environmentalists because it has so often been used to advance fascist and racist agendas. But, the film asks, isn't it time to try to broach this topic in a way that highlights the fact that the highest energy demands derive from the privileged West? What if the fascism-consumption fallacy has allowed the left to ignore the need to talk about consumption? And, what if, ignoring that conversation allowed climate-concerned citizens to feel like they were doing good things for the planet when they weren't after all?

At the heart of the film is the notion that the real "inconvenient truth" that Al Gore once referred to in his iconic environmentalist film is actually more like Moore's "awful truth": Maybe we didn't focus on reducing consumption because we didn't want to. Maybe it was easier to believe that renewables would give us all the energy we wanted without asking us to change. Or, maybe we didn't know that renewables weren't the energy saviors we thought they were. After watching this film, you won't be able to think about the human toll on the planet in the same way again.

Clearly "Planet of the Humans" has struck a nerve. In its first week it had been seen over four million times, attacked by calls to have it censored <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down>, and lauded as a much-needed intervention into the energy debate <https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/09/consuming-the-planet-of-the-humans-the-most-important-documentary-of-the-century/>.  There is no question that, in the spirit of Moore's confrontational, provocative, socially committed, progressive style, "Planet of the Humans" is a game-changer designed to spark an intense and meaningful debate over an urgent issue. It may well be that the pandemic has created the ideal context for viewers to consider that the only way to save the planet and to support human life is to change the way we live.

—————————————————————————————————————--------------------------------
“Consumer expectations of ever-higher living standards were fuelled by more lenient and readily available bank lending …. 
Social status and identity became closely associated with consumption, in particular with the concept of luxury. 

"Identifying oneself with the good life meant being able to live beyond traditional understandings of basic needs. Debt was the price 
one paid for the joys of being part of a hedonistic consumer culture.”

Kenneth Dyson. The Morality of Debt. Foreign Affairs. May 3, 2015

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt>

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Despite recognizing the downsides of debt, the lure of spending remains strong.  After covering off on necessities, Americans said 40% 
of their monthly income goes toward discretionary spending on entertainment, leisure travel, hobbies, etc. In fact, when asked what 
financial pitfalls they are prone to, one quarter of Americans flagged “excessive/frivolous” spending.

https://www.northwesternmutual.com/about-us/studies/planning-and-progress-study-2017

————————————————————————————————————
"The big challenge is still to deliver emissions reductions at the pace and scale needed, especially in a world where economies are driven by consumption.”

Sonja van Renssen.The inconvenient truth of failed climate policies. Nature Climate Change  MAY 2018

Published online: 27 April 2018 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0155-4 
———————————————————————————————————————

The most penetrating criticism I’ve seen of renewable energy—such as wind,  solar, hydropower, hydrogen and long-life battery technology— is that it’s being promoted at massive scale to reassure us that we can go on as before, with little if any change of lifestyle, no move beyond our comfort zones. That’s a comforting view, one that we’d all love to be true.

Lance Olsen. The Paradox Of Building America's Green Lifestyle Grid

May 13, 2019 https://mountainjournal.org/renewable-energy-solves-one-problem-but-creates-another <https://mountainjournal.org/renewable-energy-solves-one-problem-but-creates-another>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bigskynet.org/pipermail/missoula-community-news_bigskynet.org/attachments/20200502/be6a1b45/attachment.html>