In case you have not been following the saga, there is an interesting
battle going on now between Moore and some of the green crowd. Moore’s new documentary
“Planet of the Humans”, takes on the mythology of the renewable energy field.
It points out, for example, that your “green” electric car is actually powered
by some nearby – likely coal-burning – power plant, so the so-called “renewable”
aspect is really just a comforting illusion. He deals similarly with wind and
solar power. Those who have read the Mark Mill’s paper “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking” which we were discussing some months ago,
or read Vaclav Smil’s 2017 book Energy and Civilization: A History,
or Richard Rhodes 2018 book Energy: A Human History, will
already be conversant with these issues. You can get a quick summary of the
content of his movie in the New York Post
article Why eco-leftists are suddenly turning on Michael Moore. You can find
the movie itself on YouTube here, if it hasn’t been removed again. It runs an hour and 40 minutes.
Perhaps because Moore has been a darling of the far left for
so long, his attack on the prevalent mythology of the renewable energy crowd
has sparked a vicious backlash from those who feel he has suddenly betrayed them.
For a pretty good summary of this flap, read the recent Forbes article Stanford Prof Can’t Muzzle ‘Planet of the Humans’,Must Pay Defendant’s Legal Fees in SLAPP Suit.
What I find interesting in this flap is not so much the technical debate
about the viability of this or that renewable energy source, but rather the
attempt (dangerous, in my opinion) to muzzle debate on the issue by what purports
to be a portion of the scientific and academic community. When ideas become so
sacred that they can’t be discussed, debated or challenged, then we are on
dangerous and unproductive ground.
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