I watched this film last night on Youtube and I found it very interesting. When I checked out my usual political sites today I saw that alot of people are highlighting its critique of the environmental movement and the alternative energy industry, many indicating that this film proves that they are all a lie and therefore can be ignored.
These people missed the whole point of the film.
The key message of the film is humans, as a species, are consuming the resources of the planet at an unsustainable rate and that the alternative energy industry is being sold to us as a way to allow us to keep doing that without facing the consequences. In essence we are being told that if we handle global warming and climate change things will be alright and we will not have to worry about all of the rest, such as the destruction of biodiversity, the polluting and emptying out of our oceans and global deforestation.
The film points out the the focus on climate change and renewable energy sources is not a panacea. Indeed, it points out that big oil is behind much of the renewable energy boom, as they continue to make big profits from it. That is not a bad thing. Until we come up with a new way of organizing ourselves economically the profit motive will be necessary to change behaviours.
Unfortunately, that message is lost in the film's over-the-top critique of the green energy industry. The film is 1 hour and 40 minutes long but only focuses on its key message for about 15 minutes. The rest is spent trashing the green energy industry and some environmentalists.
Much of the critique is off base. The film maker mentions that solar panels and wind turbines require fossil fuels to manufacture and to install. This is not a revelation as some would like us to think. We live in a world addicted to fossil fuels. They are everywhere and in everything. The whole point of green energy is to provide an alternative way of generating energy than fossil fuels. If a country requires 100 mW of energy each year and 25 mW can be generated by green energy then that is 25% less fossil fuel being burned each year with the commensurate reduction in the production of GHGs. Yes, GHGs would have been emitted during the manufacturing and installation of the green energy systems but those are upfront costs that would be canceled out over the life of the system. It cost me a sizable chunk of money to have new windows put into my house 10 years ago but the savings on my heating and cooling bills in the last ten years have offset that cost and the windows should be good for another 15 years.
The other assertion of the film is the green energy systems, such as solar panels and wind turbines have a life cycle of only about 10 years. That is just silly. Everything made my humans has a life cycle. Nothing we make lasts forever. Everything we make requires regular maintenance and eventual replacement. Too expect anything less from green energy is an extremely unfair expectation. Further, like everything else, as demand for something increases the greater the innovation that goes into the product. Such innovation can increase the life cycle of any product.
The one critique of the green energy industry that makes sense is its critique of the burning of biomass. As the film indicates that is just burning wood. There is a reason why humans switched from burning wood to burning coal. Coal provides more energy per tonne. To revert back to burning wood to produce energy is silly and it is counterproductive because it means we have to accelerate the deforestation of the planet in order to produce this energy.
The maker of the Planet of the Humans could have been much more balanced in his approach to proving is initial thesis. It is true that global warming and climate change are not the only environmental challenges we face. Human action is presenting us with a whole host of environmental challenges which if they are not addresses, and soon, could have a profound negative impact on our civilization and maybe even our species. Unfortunately, the film maker missed an opportunity to better highlight that reality.
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