Written By Ivana Jeftic
Edited By Theo Collins
Original Image can be found here.
The documentary film “Planet of the Humans” examines and investigates what many of us may have already questioned: the reliability and transparency of mainstream environmental groups when influenced and run by billionaires, corporations and wealthy family foundations. Although it received backlash upon its release, the film presents the inconvenient truth of our current so-called “green energy” technologies and examines whether they are as clean as they are portrayed to be. All in all, this documentary examines what happens when a single species with a lack of self-restraint takes over the planet.
Although the narrator, Jeff Gibbs, claims to have been a big fan of green energy, he was disappointed by his initial findings of renewable energy applications. In 2010, he visits a General Motor Chevy Volt press conference and learns that their new electric “green” vehicle is not as green as expected. Their source of power for the battery is the electric grid in Lansing, Michigan, which is about 95% coal-powered. He speaks to a representative of Lansing and learns of their Cedar Street Solar Array which, on their website, claims to generate enough power for “50 homes”. In reality, the plant has an efficiency of about 8%, producing about 64000 kilowatts per year which is enough “for 10 homes” (Moore, 2019, 0:15:52) given that the average customer uses 6000 kilowatts per year. Gibbs also visits a construction site in Vermont, which is being cleared for the construction of 21 wind-powered turbines. He learns that these turbines last about 20 years and are essentially a mountaintop removal for wind instead of coal. Additionally, sites such as this one are not run by local companies. This Vermont company will be bought by Gaz Metro, which is owned by Enbridge, a pipeline resource company in Canada. For both investigations that were done, the companies claim that environmental groups have been extremely supportive of the work being done regardless of the fact that everywhere Gibbs would go, it “wasn’t what it seemed” (Moore, 2019, 0:20:53).
Scientists argue against portions of this film, stating that as long as fossil fuel accounts for “99% or less” (Philosopher, 2019) of the production of electricity with the new green innovations, it is aiding in the slowdown of the rate of warming. Jeff Gibbs speaks to numerous environmental health and safety consultants, sociologists, anthropologists and engineers to gain a better understanding of the science behind green energy. He speaks to Richard York, an environmental sociologist that challenges this conventional thinking. In his article, “Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels?”, he explains that suppressing the usage of fossil fuels requires changes from multidisciplinary units and not just from the increase and expansion of non-fossil fuels. Focusing specifically on electricity, each unit of electricity generated by non-fossil-fuel sources displaces “less than one-tenth of a unit of fossil-fuel-generated electricity” (York, 2012).
Ozzie Zehner, the author of “Green Illusions”, takes Gibbs to the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, where they see a natural gas line hooked up to the facility. They learn from industry insiders and engineers from the facility that in an attempt to close coal plants, two natural gas plants have taken their place. This results in an even bigger expansion of fossil fuels, as the natural gas plants can produce up to four times more megawatts of power. From Tesla claiming that they are using “100% renewable energy” (Peters, 2019) while still being connected to the “grid” (Moore, 2019, 0:34:29), to biomass plants using whole trees instead of dead trees as advertised, to universities claiming they are “going green” while using biomass energy plants, the intermittency of renewable energy is concealed while fossil fuels are endorsed and supported by Wall Street investors, wealthy family foundations, politicians and billionaires such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Sierra Club and the Koch Brothers.
Although “Planet of the Humans” doesn’t have a happy ending and has gotten a lot of attention from critics, the purpose of the film isn’t to shut down the idea of green energy, it’s to shed light on what’s really going on behind the scenes and to encourage society to do better. Are we avoiding looking too closely at the topics discussed because they’re false or because we don’t want the real answers? We should be permitted to have discussions about the reality of our world, no matter how uncomfortable, because the only thing worse than knowing the outcome of our actions is discovering that we’ve put our hopes for survival into illusions.
References
Moore, M., & Zehner, O., & Gibbs, J. (2019). Planet of the Humans. United States; Rumble Media and Youtube. Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE&t=0s.
Peters, A. (2019, April 16). Inside Tesla's 100% renewable design for the gigafactory. Fast Company. Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://www.fastcompany.com/90334858/inside-teslas-100-renewable-design-for-the-gigafactory
Philosopher, R. (2019, November 1). Is green energy powered by fossil fuels? Robot Philosopher. Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://robotphilosopherblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/15/is-green-energy-powered-by-fossil-fuels/
Renewable energy - BWL Renewable Portfolio . lbwl.com. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://www.lbwl.com/about-bwl/renewable-energy
York, R. (2012, March 18). Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels? Nature Climate Change . Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1451