Michael Moore is great at starting revolutions and I have been a fan of each and every one of his films. I remember meeting him and witnessing his passion for doing the right thing at a showing of his film, Bowling for Columbine in St.Paul years ago. Greedy multinational corporations are not put on trial enough for the pain they leave in their wake. The crime of illegal wars, institutional racism and classism and are never deeply examined enough and admirably Moore is consistently up for the task.
I patiently waited while he ever so skillfully he went after General Motors, the Health Care System, the Gun Lobby and more. Sometimes I wasn’t so patient. While I was completely with him in his attack on everything from the NRA to Wall street greed, I was waiting for a film that deeply questioned why we were still heading for the cliff of collapse even though we had 50 years of Earth days under our belt.
Well here it is, Planet of the Humans, a film detonating business as usual, because to keep on doing the same thing while getting zero results is the definition of insanity. Moore lent his moxie to a film by Jeff Gibbs who dared to question the fundamental ways in which we are dealing with our predicament on the planet. Any objective view of our state of the world would reveal that we are in more trouble than ever. Carbon parts per million is going up, human numbers keep skyrocketing, endangered species keep getting added to the list and in the race to cover the landscape of the planet, forests are losing out to deserts. More than that, monied interests keep controlling the modern human narrative with their advocates deeply in their pockets. The green illusions have to be a part of that story and with Ozzie Zehner’s help we can now see why green has not lived up to its promises.
Those of us who have been in the trenches fighting for the deep attention the earth really need to be grateful for this revolutionary film. We cannot shoot the messengers even though there is an embarrassing litany of doing so throughout history. Those benefiting from the current way of doing things will always protest, but they cannot get in our way of listening.
Galileo died under house arrest for suggesting what his telescope revealed. Gibbs has crafted a telescope of sorts to peer into the way energy is delivered to us under false pretenses and some are upset, offended and even call for a violation of his first amendment rights. They refuse to look through his lens, because they are intellectually married to their savior, renewable energy. Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor who discovered in the 1800’s that if surgeons washed their hands, patients wouldn’t die of infection. He had double blind studies and documentation that he was right. No one believed him at the time and he himself died in his 40’s of an infection himself. The vitriol directed at POTH unfortunately reveals that the tendency to ignore science and evidence is still with us today and hurting us more than ever.
I have long believed that the worst thing we could do is to come up with some magical form of energy to power our destructive ways. If the world of industrial development ever discovers an unlimited and easily harnessed, carbon-free energy source we are all doomed. We do not need a world of bulldozers powered by magical energy, we need less bulldozing. We need less of everything we have been doing. We are deep into what I like to call the GHG.. the Great Human Gobbling and Gibbs and Zehner have given their life’s blood into waking us up. The fact that POTH uncovers the lies behind our hopes for green energy’s ability to save us from ourselves is just the beginning of the story that needs to be told
It’s like many people have been riding on a high-speed electric train riding along and enjoying the view, eating their vegetarian organic meals in the dining car when they are told to stop the train. They liked the ride and thought they were on the right train, after all its electric and they are eating the most planet conscious diet. POTH is the first awakening in a long time to say that the ride may seem to be sustainable but you are still headed for a cliff. We need to be thankful for the warning.
I have been a lifelong environmentalist and overpopulation activist. For a long time, I knew our house was on fire. I could see the billowing smoke in our numbers alone. But I was told I couldn’t call the fire department, I would be an alarmist even though I knew reckless pro-growth policies would never allow efforts to practice conservation and green up the earth to work.
POTH didn’t just call the fire department, it called a global 911 and I for one am eternally grateful. While some are still wondering why it was necessary and still others have been shocked back into denial, I have other concerns. What concerns me is not that they have revealed that the emperor of green energy has no clothes but how our new and very much needed environmental movement might still miss the mark. If the millions who have seen POTH are shocked and dismayed by the delusions of green energy just wait til they hear how overpopulation and its evil twin overconsumption, have been thrown under the politically correct bus. Even more disturbing will be the revelation that the environmental establishment has been in the driver’s seat not willing to address the implications of the 5.5 billion people we have added to our limited planet in the last century.
There have been plenty of us lesser known writers, filmmakers, and activists waiting in the wings for a new batch of environmental recruits. We are willing and able to take on the challenge of steering our train away from the cliff, but will our messages get heard or be drowned out by the next batch of snakeoil salesmen? We are here ready to grab this opportunity with even more truths to reveal.
Will these newly awakened environmentally concerned get to hear that we have to start de-growing our world one country at a time using the most effective and humane means possible? Will they understand the implications of overshooting our resources locally and globally by both our numbers and habits? Can they embrace the fact that the first method available to us is to redo our immigration, tax and labor laws to stop our trajectory toward our ever-climbing numbers? I hope so. I am concerned that once again our much needed revolution will get off track. So many revolutions start out with great ideas and get derailed by those more interested in profit and power than in truly making a difference.
The full story of the Great Human Gobbling of the only planet in our solar system able to sustain life has begun to be told by POTH. It is just the beginning. Put on your seatbelt -- we are in for a ride and we must we must stay awake. No more falling asleep at the wheel to the soothing voices of those with promises in one pocket and dollars in the other.