Planet of the Humans is Michale Moore’s latest documentary, it is produced by him and directed by environmentalist Jeff Gibbs. The documentary can leave you with an unsettling feeling of defeat. As with many other of Moore’s works, it is controversial and has raised many criticisms.
As we are no experts on fossil fuels or renewable energies and the mechanics behind them we won’t go into analyzing the technical data mentioned in the film (here are two articles from experts that talk about it instead: “Inside Clean Energy: 6 Things Michael Moore’s Planet of the Humans Gets Wrong” and “3 times Michael Moore’s film Planet of the Humans gets the facts wrong and 3 times it gets them right”), however, here are a few thoughts regarding the documentary and the environmental movement that arose after we watched it.
As a positive way of looking at the film’s criticism of renewable energy, we must highlight that they have a point when it comes to the capitalist industrialized system we live in and the major use of resources this system needs in order for the current population to live, as well as the fact that the same companies that are part of the current system are now investing in renewable energy projects and how negative that is for the environmental cause, as their sole goal is profit-based and it seems like they are only going green out of convenience. It is true that we can not forget that our planet has limited resources and overpopulation is an issue, how we must or can address it is a major current debate (one that they don’t go into much detail in the film).
However, the documentary does not offer any solutions to the problems they point out which could cause people to feel very defeated and give the sense that there is nothing we can do about it, and therefore give up. This mentality is hurting the environmental movement that has been going on for a few years now, which in our opinion is so necessary in order for things to change.
Personally, I think it is important to point out how much technology has advanced in the green field and how every day more people are concerned about the climate crisis and are willing to give up convenience and certain commodities for the cause.
