On the Planet of the Humans

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

-John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

Michael Moore's latest film planet of the humans beautifully outlines issues that we all need to understand. A beautiful outline of a terrible reality. Any revelation of truth in the midst of confusion is beauty. Critics will find errors, omissions and misleading statements in Planet of the Humans. Despite that, it is more than true, it is actually happening. Even now, I cannot say that I have taken a side in this. After over twenty thousand hours of study on environmental problems I still have not decided what the right answer is.

Whether we choose to say this film discredits environmentalists (it doesn’t), disparages Al Gore (it does),or simply raises serious questions about whether we are attempting to apply technical solutions to spiritual problems, I would recommend you take the time to watch it. For your interest here are some key points about Planet of the Humans.

1. Biomass is a nightmare for nature and if left unchecked will consume the planet’s forests. Biomass is the combustion of plant based matter (like trees) instead of fossil fuels (like gasoline) to produce energy. Biomass use when driven by market conditions (like abundant waste byproduct or remote location) is probably the correct choice for an energy source. For example for powering forest products operations in the far north of Canada (see Tembec’s Boiler) or in sugar cane waste in the Caribbean (though this case yields further proof to Moore’s point, the 30 MW plant ran out of Bagasse (sugar cane waste) and had to rely on ‘firewood’, meanwhile the project is certified as part of the “Clean Development Mechanism” of the World Bank by Canada). According to the film, Biomass generation has grown far faster and wider due to perverse incentives (like offset credits, World Bank loans, and other high dollar subsidies) such that it threatens to hasten the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and other sources of wood chips (ie trees) around the globe.

Your best case and worst case scenario probably already exists on Earth somewhere — The future is already here, it is just not evenly distributed. - William Gibson

2. Moore relies heavily on a limits to growth perspective. At its extreme this view suggests that humanity is a cancer on the Earth that must be cured.

the biologists often are pessimistic and they basically adopt a Malthusian perspective and that is that we'll continue to breed until we exhaust the planet and and do in our all of our resources -Jordan Peterson

Some prominent thinkers, like Jordan Peterson, above, have suggested "that those who seek to limit population (the ultimate aim of the limits to growth or club of rome school of thought) are misanthropic.The desire to restrain population is a hatred of reproduction (and those who reproduce) and a resentment against oneself, one’s parents, God and life itself. If controlling population is the solution, we need to ask,

whose population?

where and which population?

How will you control it?

And what will it solve?

Population growth may be a technical problem, indeed there is likely a limit to growth as everything has a limit, but a focus on population growth may be due to a deep seated nihilism and not a love of nature. Indeed according to the Simon Abundance Index an increase in population leads to more availability of goods at prices that are lower relative to the costs in an average hour of labour. How else do we explain the declining infant mortality, the increasing life expectancy the elimination of infectious disease across the poorest regions of the world. Is life not good in itself and more life even better?"

Poised and ready to shoot — Beauty is Truth

3. Definitions in reality may not align with the things they purport to define. Moore finds many prominent environmental organizations working to protect the environment by attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by means which destroy nature. A definition which is true on the singular dimension of its intended outcome, but ignores its total effect, is false, if its effect is opposite its intended outcome. Planet of the Humans shows that defining a person or process as good does not make it so. Sometimes Good Guy and Bad Guy are simply two masks for the same person.

4. The film presents a view that aligns well with Sarkar’s definition of Eco-Socialism, quoted in whole below:

Let us now come to the essential points of eco-socialism. I think, they are the convictions that: (1) there are limits to growth – not only to economic but also to population growth;

(2) we have already overshot these limits to a dangerous level;

(3) there are no technological solutions to the global resource and pollution problems;

(4) therefore the world economy must now be subjected to a process of deliberate contraction and gradually brought to a sustainable steady state;

(5) this contraction must proceed in a planned way, otherwise human societies would collapse one after the other;

(6) both the burdens and benefits of economic contraction must be distributed equitably; otherwise citizens would not accept the planned contraction;

(7) the goal must be to reach a sustainable and egalitarian steady-state economy and society at a much lower level than today's.

In short the problem cannot be solved by industrial society, the problem is industrial society. The problem cannot be solved by greed, the problem is greed.

and here we are.