Michael Moore Documentary: Planet Of The Humans

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Michael Moore Documentary: Planet Of The Humans

Gibbs, who produced Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11,”
didn’t set out to take on the environmental movement. He said he wanted
to know why things weren’t getting better. But when he started pulling on
the thread, he and Moore said they were shocked to find how inextricably
entangled alternative energy is with coal and natural gas, since they say
everything from wind turbines to electric car charging stations are tethered
to the grid, and even how the Koch brothers are tied to solar panel production
through their glass production business.

“It turned out the wakeup call was about our own side,” Gibbs said in
a phone interview. “It was kind of crushing to discover that the things
I believed in weren’t real, first of all, and then to discover not only are
the solar panels and wind turbines not going to save us ... but (also)
that there is this whole dark side of the corporate money ... It dawned
on me that these technologies were just another profit center.” Both
know the film is going to be a “tough pill to swallow.” It was a difficult
eye-opener for them as well.
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Okay.

I don't see how any of this is a surprise.

P. S. I wonder if they'll mention nuclear.
 
I don't understand why "tethered to the grid" is a bad thing. Did Moore think that people are charging their electric cars directly from windmills?
 
Even people on the Left don't pay much attention to Michael Moore anymore.
Never liked him much as a filmmaker. Always though his humor was forced, and he was never one fourth as witty and clever as he thought he was.
And his painting of repressive regimes on the Left in bright colors simply because they were "anti Capitlaist" always went down badly with me.
 
"It dawned on me that these technologies were just another profit center.”

Is he saying he only just now figured out that we're paying people to make the stuff we want?

At some point during the production of this documentary, it must have dawned on him that he expected a paycheck for his work, right?
 
PhantomWolf said:
You only read the first paragraph didn't you...
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No, I read it all. If you are thinking of nuclear energy as a way to produce nuclear weapons that doesn't make it less interesting (or profitable) for private investors.
 
If Michael Moore said the sky was blue I would go outside and check.

The guy is a buffoon.
 
dann said:
No, I read it all. If you are thinking of nuclear energy as a way to produce nuclear weapons that doesn't make it less interesting (or profitable) for private investors.
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No, I was meaning this part...

The report published by the German Institute for Economic Research (known as DIW Berlin) reviewed the development of 674 nuclear power plants built since 1951, finding that none of the plants was built using ‘private capital under competitive conditions’.
“The results showed that in all cases, an investment would generate significant financial losses. The (weighted) average net present value was around minus 4.8 billion euros,” the study says.

“Even in the best case, the net present value was approximately minus 1.5 billion euros. The authors included conservative assumptions with high electricity prices, low capital costs, and specific investment. Considering all assumptions regarding the uncertain parameters, nuclear energy is never profitable.”
The report authors are also pessimistic about the future of nuclear power, concluding that nuclear power will remain unprofitable into the foreseeable future.
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If you care to provide evidence otherwise rather than just making claims, then I'm all ears.
 
The Nuclear Power Dilemma (2018)

More than one-third of US nuclear plants are unprofitable or scheduled to close. On average, it would cost $814 million annually to bring unprofitable plants back to a breakeven point. Plants owned by merchant generators that sell power into competitive wholesale markets face a higher risk of closure than regulated utilities that recover their costs from ratepayers.
Click to expand...
 
PhantomWolf said:
The Nuclear Power Dilemma (2018)
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Wow, that must have been quite the lemon-flavored tablet to swallow for the UCS, forced to admit that keeping nuclear plants online is better than letting them be retired. In fact, you could sense that they were coming quite close to supporting new plants. Of course, they hid that behind the veil of the carbon tax, which they hasten to assure us won't cost much:

A national carbon price and/or low-carbon electrify standard (LCES) would help avoid an overreliance on natural gas, while costing the average US household only $0.74 to $1.03 per month.
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It's going to magically not cost much but somehow do wonders for CO2 emissions? Pull the other one.
 
PhantomWolf said:
No, I was meaning this part...

If you care to provide evidence otherwise rather than just making claims, then I'm all ears.
Click to expand...


What do you think this means? "none of the plants was built using ‘private capital under competitive conditions’."

Let me give you a hint: It doesn't stop after, "none of the plants was built using 'private capital'."
 
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dann said:
What do you think this means? "none of the plants was built using ‘private capital under competitive conditions’."

Let me give you a hint: It doesn't stop after, "none of the plants was built using 'private capital'."
Click to expand...

Still waiting for you to do more than make claims. Claims without evidence cam be dismissed without evidence, but instead I have shown reports that say Nuclear Powered Stations are not profitable, and the evidence is that unless Governments back them to make them viable and break even, then plans to build them are mothballed and ended because they can't be made to be financially sound at all. You haven't shown otherwise.
 
Brainster said:
Wow, that must have been quite the lemon-flavored tablet to swallow for the UCS, forced to admit that keeping nuclear plants online is better than letting them be retired. In fact, you could sense that they were coming quite close to supporting new plants. Of course, they hid that behind the veil of the carbon tax, which they hasten to assure us won't cost much:



It's going to magically not cost much but somehow do wonders for CO2 emissions? Pull the other one.
Click to expand...

one of the papers I came across noted that Nuclear will not be competitive until there is a $45/1000kw carbon tax in place.
 
dudalb said:
Even people on the Left don't pay much attention to Michael Moore anymore.
Never liked him much as a filmmaker. Always though his humor was forced, and he was never one fourth as witty and clever as he thought he was.
And his painting of repressive regimes on the Left in bright colors simply because they were "anti Capitlaist" always went down badly with me.
Click to expand...
Agreed, except that those repressive regimes aren't really anti-capitalist.


PhantomWolf said:
one of the papers I came across noted that Nuclear will not be competitive until there is a $45/1000kw carbon tax in place.
Click to expand...
And this illustrates precisely why not everything should be prrofit driven.
 
dann said:
You know that "heavily subsidised by governments" (from your article) is how corporate money becomes profitable nowadays.
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"Capitalism is evil! Electricity is a right! The government should pay for it!"

"We're subsidizing every kind of electrical power we can think of, from solar to nuclear. Is that socialist enough for you?"

"No, that's even more capitalist, somehow!"
 
Been meaning to mention its free to view for a limited period.

Much to disagree with, but what also annoys is its a Michael Moore film. So we have lots of questions, views, with very little substance to back up what they are saying.

The biomass thing I can just about go with if they are not replanting, but their take on solar PV was absurd. Solar CSP was interesting though.

The idea that renewables may have a carbon cost [gasp]. And replacing coal with gas/solar with does actually lower your carbon emissions by a sizeable margin, but like I said, typical Moore film - lacking in substance.

But basically, it did show that nuclear is the way forward, which is what many of us have been saying for years.
 
oddball said:
Well now that the film is free to watch on youtube, what do y'all think of it?
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I haven't seen it yet, but I will.
I saw Josh Fox criticizing the film, and he seems to have valid objections to it:

The Hill: Filmmaker Josh Fox responds to Michael Moore on bombshell climate film (May 1, 2020 - 16 min.)
 
wobs said:
But basically, it did show that nuclear is the way forward, which is what many of us have been saying for years.
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Yes, many of you have, but ...

Hele 72 procent udgjorde de CO2-frie energikilder i produktionen af strøm - det vil sige vindmøller, solceller og biomasse.
Ser man på vores forbrug af el, er sol- og vindkraftens andel 49 procent i år - en stigning fra 45 procent for to år siden. Solcellerne står for 3 procent.
Nye rekorder for grøn energi i Danmark (TV-MV/Ritzau, Dec. 20, 2019)
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Translaton:
As much as 72 percent of the production of electrical power was made up of the CO2-free sources of energy - i.e. windturbines, solar and biomass.
If we look at our consumption of electricity, the percentage of solar and wind power is 49 this year - up from 45 percent two years ago. Solar represents 3 percent.
New records for green energy in Denmark
See also: Windpower in Denmark (Wikipedia) Facts and figures appear to be from five years ago
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I think Michael Moore is exceedingly dishonest, and that my time would be better spent listening to what almost anybody else has to say on the subject.
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Like a lot of people I’m running out of things to watch, but I’d rather watch paint dry than a Michael Moore video.
 
dann said:
I haven't seen it yet, but I will.
I saw Josh Fox criticizing the film, and he seems to have valid objections to it:

The Hill: Filmmaker Josh Fox responds to Michael Moore on bombshell climate film (May 1, 2020 - 16 min.)
Click to expand...

There's a transcript (along with commentary from the hostile transcriber) here.

Here is the article he wrote, which goes into more detail. It also links a couple of other articles such as this one, which go in to a lot more detail.

The short version is that this is a typical Moore documentary - wholly populated with lies.
 
dudalb said:
Even people on the Left don't pay much attention to Michael Moore anymore.
Never liked him much as a filmmaker. Always though his humor was forced, and he was never one fourth as witty and clever as he thought he was.
And his painting of repressive regimes on the Left in bright colors simply because they were "anti Capitlaist" always went down badly with me.
Click to expand...

He's had a brief moment in the sun in 2016. He was ringing the alarm bell in Michigan while the HRC campaign was on their leisurely victory lap of a campaign.

He has seemed to have been largely irrelevant for a while during the Obama years, but seemed to get a bit of a profile boost from that.

His essay, derided at the time as doomsaying nonsense, stands up pretty well even today.

https://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/

i never much cared for his movies. I am generally skeptical of activist documentaries because the filmmaker has so much power in the editing room to present things a certain way.
 
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Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I think Michael Moore is exceedingly dishonest, and that my time would be better spent listening to what almost anybody else has to say on the subject.
Click to expand...

Michael Moore should make a documentary about Michael Moore, exposing how Michael Moore has deliberately presented misleading information. With Michael Moore attempting to interview Michael Moore while Michael Moore suspiciously evades the attempts of Michael Moore to interview Michael Moore.
 
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I have now watched the first 45 minutes, and I will watch the rest tonight.

A couple of my impressions so far:

It begins with a bunch of hippies at a "solar festival" where it's cloudy and raining so solar doesn't work. Who would have thought that it would? Not even the hippies, apparently.

“I haven’t found a single entity in the world that’s running on 100% solar and wind alone.” (35:52 ff) What is the point of this absolutism? The idea appears to be that if solar and wind alone can't replace fossil fuels, something must be wrong with it.

I just love the chapter, How Solar Cells & Wind Turbines Are Made – and Electric Cars, Too (36:50) (I recommend that you skip the first two minutes and start at → 39:10)
We are told that deserts are full of life, one example is Joshua Trees. Yes, and so what? Can't they plant them somewhere else? Or place the solar and wind plants somewhere without Joshua Trees? But the argument seems to be that solar and wind plants take up space and don't last forever! Who would have thought that?
“Yes, these giant solar and wind technology installations may last only a few decades (somber music), then tear it down and start all over again (somber music). If there is enough planet left.” (43:45)
The ******* actually seems to think that we are running out of desert and other space!

By the way, at this point windmills in Europe are primarily built at sea. Of course, some people complain that it spoils the view – and complete and utter idiots like Trump claim that they cause cancer – but this is the first time that I have heard the objection that there isn’t enough space on Earth for solar and wind power.
I also find it funny that this part of the film is so focused on the resources needed to produce solar and wind power plants, as if fossil fuel and nuclear power plants don’t require the use of energy when they are being built and as if they will last forever and not “only (!) a few decades”!!!!

Let me again refer to the case of Denmark, post 34, a very small country, where wind power is still being expanded and where there's still space left to build and erect more turbines, and where nobody (as far as I know) ever expected wind power to replace fossil fuels 100%.
 
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