By Peter Burrows, Libertarian Leanings, 4/22/20 elburropete@gmail.com - silvercityburro.com
Michael Moore has just posted his latest documentary film, "Planet of the Humans," on You Tube where you can watch it for free. It's free because he doesn't want anything to get in the way of the film's message: 'Green' energy is a disastrous, profit-driven scam.
It's an hour and forty minutes long, but it flies by. Like other Moore documentaries, it's very one-sided, but unlike other Moore documentaries, green energy doesn't have a mitigating "side" to show. Any way you look at it, green energy, aka renewable energy, is an economic waste that does more environmental harm than good.
The film takes on the big three, wind, solar and biomass, and devastates them all, especially biomass. Along the way, it also devastates a few leading environmentalists, most notably Al Gore and the Sierra Club. It asks if the green energy pushers are delusional, ignorant, or something else, and comes up with something else, namely they're in it for the money.
A disinterested observer would note that "stupid" was left off the list, but stupid is how the noted environmentalist Bill McKibben comes off, pathetically so, and 'stupid' is the only way you can describe people who are only now waking up to the fact that wind and solar power are intermittent and therefore need instantaneous backup power, which ADDS to the cost even after 'free' sunshine and wind.
The film even reveals the arcane fact that electric vehicles are charged by fossil fuels, not solar panels, and that there is no company that runs 100% on wind and solar alone, in spite of what they may claim. That would also apply to any city that made the same claim, but the documentary is tellingly free of criticizing government at any level.
That's the main problem I have with the film. The green energy disaster is the result of government policies, not a "cancerous form of capitalism" driven by profits and billionaires who "are not our friends," as the film claims.
Nowhere does the film cite government mandates, such as renewable portfolio standards and biofuel blending regulations; nowhere does it mention production tax credits for wind producers or tax credits for solar panel makers; nowhere does it mention tax credits for the wealthy consumers who buy Teslas or put solar panels on their homes.
The bottom line is that without government incentives, there would be no 'green energy' industry. This is as obvious as the fact that solar panels don't work at night, but liberals like Michael Moore can't see it. They blame the recipient for taking the government subsidies, not the government for giving the subsidies. Mindboggling, isn't it?
The message the film delivers about green energy has been around for a long time, as anybody who has followed Bill Gate or Michael Shellenberger would know. Those two weren't mentioned in the film, probably because both advocate nuclear energy as the only viable solution to climate change. The film's solution: population control.
Sigh. Just when the film was about to make total sense, it goes Malthusian on us. This is the no-fault default position of elitists, as witness the success of Paul Ehrlich, who has been predicting food shortages and mass starvation for years, starting with his book, The Population Bomb, published in 1968. That's not a typo: 1968.
Ignore the apocalyptic parts of the film. The important thing is the fact that an unassailable liberal icon, Michael Moore, has pulled the plug on renewable energy. Thanks to him, it's possible the entire renewable energy push will be questioned, perhaps even ended, not just in America, but around the world.
Michael Moore has a much better chance to do that than somebody like Bill Gates, a calm guy who throws facts around. Michael Moore is a self-righteous raging bull who throws bombs around, especially "f" bombs. You disagree with him, he'll get in your face and bellow. Maybe that's what it takes.
Stay tuned folks. This is going to get VERY interesting.