Scoop: the Josh Fox Gas Bomb

Posted on by Geoff ChambersIn Uncategorized6 Minutes Read

(Starring Michael Mann as Private Ryan)

It’s big news when the world’s most famous Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist and a green film maker demand an apology from another green film maker for making a film and ask him to ban it. This declaration of war within the Green Blob is not available on the internet, except in the form of an unreadable un-copy-and-pastable tweet. As I pointed out in a comment below my previous post, publicising it in this fashion, knowing that few will read it but many will be excited by the very fact that it exists, is the equivalent of waving a Munich agreement – or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – in front of an excited crowd. Maximum hysteria disguising minimum content.

I copied the first paragraph of the letter, reproduced by Delingpole in this article:

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/04/24/delingpole-left-wing-activists-are-trying-to-cancel-michael-moore/

into Google, and the only find on the entire internet was the Delingpole article. In the interest of historical truth and the promotion of the Green Civil War, I transcribe it in full here. It is hilarious.

(Note: what makes me [sic] about the following is the fact that they can’t even write a letter with sentences with verbs in. The lies, burbling repetitions, and sheer clod-hopping stupidity of Michael Mann and his fans are too obvious for comment. But comment anyway.)

Dear activist and scientific community, community members and friends,

It is very difficult to write this letter, because Michael Moore has always been a hero of mine. I’m a first-person documentary maker, I have watched his movies since I was a kid, and they have inspired and delighted me. However, I am compelled to write this letter because his latest film PLANET OF THE HUMANS, which he executive produced and is promoting for Earth Week, is such a blatant affront to science, renewable energy, environmental activism and truth itself.

We are in a planetary crisis – the most important and dangerous emergency that human civilisation has ever faced. The IPCC and thousands of climate scientists have stated over and over that we have less than a decade to begin the rapid and total transformation of our energy system to renewable energy. I cannot describe my disappointment and anger to see a Michael Moore film which is wilfully flying in the face of decades of renewable energy science, planning, and engineering.

The film touts blatantly untrue fossil fuel industry talking points deceitfully misleading its audience on renewable energy, disparages and attacks important climate leaders, ignores science and policy advances in energy, downplays or denounces climate and anti-fossil fuel campaigns and employs specious techniques of misinformation to deliver a deeply cynical and erroneous message. This is a total outrage at this moment when climate action and the leap to renewable energy is more important than ever.

Please see points below and consider signing on to this letter of outrage against this film.

Thank you so much,

Josh Fox

Sign on letter:

Dear Michael Moore, Jeff Gibbs, Films for Action and all associated with PLANET OF THE HUMANS,

Summary:

The new movie Executive Produced and promoted by Michael Moore, directed by Jeff Gibbs and distributed by Films for Action, PLANET OF THE HUMANS is unscientific, flies in the face of decades of renewable energy science, engineering and research and is counter productive in the age of urgent need for Climate Action. Because the film is based in [sic] misinformation and not in truth, we request that the film be retracted by its creators and distributors and an apology rendered for its misleading content.

Intro:

Planet of the Humans, directed by Jeff Gibbs and Produced by Michael Moore is a shockingly misleading and absurd film that promotes a thesis that is patently untrue on many levels.

1. The film states that renewable energy such as solar and wind are inefficient, useless and dependent on fossil fuels to work. Quote fro [sic] the film “One of the most dangerous things right now is the illusion that alternative technologies, like wind and solar, are somehow different than fossil fuels…. You would have been better off just burning the fossil fuels in the first place., instead of playing pretend.”

This assertion, which is echoed over and over in the film is patently untrue and ridiculous. The notion that solar and wind and other renewable technologies don’t work to produce energy in ways that are cheaper, more efficient and at low or zero carbon emissions over their life span flies in the face of everything engineers, scientists and energy planners have been writing in peer reviewed science for decades.

2.The film trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points that are specious and meant to disparage the efficiency, durability and affordability of renewable energy. Quote: “Intermittency is one of the major challenges.” “Solar panels are built to only last 10 years,  it’s not as if you get this magic free, energy, right? I don’t know if it’s the solution.” These notions, which are untrue, antiquated and outdated do not pertain to the technology and science of today, in which intermittency and efficiency are no longer issues due to the significant advances that renewable energy, science, planning and technology. [sic] The fact is that RENEWABLE ENERGY WORKS and is currently cheaper than coal and natural gas, other fossil fuel sources. [sic]

3. The film totally ignores the last ten years of peer-reviewed renewable energy planning and policy. Absent from this anti-renewable energy screed are important policy and science innovations such as the 100% renewable energy plans for each state, over 150 countries and the world [sic] from Stanford University, Physicians Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy [WT sic-ing F?] and the Solutions Project. Also absent is any mention of the Green New Deal, which is the most important policy advance on green energy of all time. Bear in mind that this work on renewable energy, such as the 100% plans for New York and California are all ready [sic]well under way and are being enacted now with solar and wind energy growing exponentially- all backed up and predicted by science.

Peer reviewed NY 100% plan: [link]

Stanford University plans: [link]

PSE Research: [link]

[The links don’t work of course, because they’re on Twitter, the world’s most profitable chain letter scam, and I can’t be hayhoed to copy them out]

4. The film attacks important environmental campaigners, scientists, policy leaders and activists in unfair and misleading ways. The climate movement, the anti fracking movement, the movement for renewable energy and against fossil fuels has been an important part of the advancement of thinking and policy towards changing our energy system away from coal oil and gas. The film attacks movement leaders like Bill McKibben, Van Jones and others as well as taking pot shots at important local campaigners like Nathan Sooy of Clean Water Action, accusing them of supporting forms of energy that they do not (like biomass) and taking money from fossil fuel interests (which they do not). See the extensive and detailed rebuttal by Bill KcKibben here: [link]

5. The film ignores that the IPCC and other scientific bodies are saying that we must cut our carbon emissions in half in the next ten years and that the only way to feasibly do that is what a total transformation of our energy systems. [sic] These scientists point overwhelmingly towards transformations in our economies in our economies towards renewable energy.

The film is dangerous, misleading and destructive to decades of progress on environmental policy, science and engineering.

We are demanding an apology and an immediate retraction by the films [sic] producers, director and advocates.

Sincerely, [sic]

Josh Fox Oscar-Nominated Emmy Winning filmmaker

Co-signed by Michael Mann Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn Science, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Headbangers Institute. He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC). Lead Author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 [by Gaia’s sweet tits, can you remember what chapter of some unpaid voluntary report you wrote nineteen years ago?]  

plus some other illiterate wankers, including Tommy Sunshine Activist/Musician, Frances Fisher Actor/Activist, Karen Feridun founder of Berks Gas Truth, Tom Dimwoodie of Sun Power, Geoffrey Supran, fallen out of the Orestes nest, I believe, and Amanda Nesheiwat of the UN Foundation for Post Conflict Development.

Stick around, Amanda, the Conflict is Developing…

58 Comments

  1. “..fossil fuel industry talking points..”

    How original..
    Was that written by one of the fossil fuel/automobile companies PR hacks that are shown in the film sponsoring the green blob?
    Anyway..I literally just finished watching the film.
    Very sad ending.
    Most of the green experts/promoters interviewed in the film, were fudging their answers or refusing to answer simple questions.
    Watching Bill McKibben pretending (badly) to not remember who sponsors his organisation was cringe inducing.

    “..Absent from this anti-renewable energy screed are important policy and science innovations..”

    Green Doublethink…
    Yes..we saw them.The very important policies that promote “science innovations”.
    Here we go…this is high tech stuff…
    You chop down a tree, make it into small pieces..and burn them.
    Wow..trillions of $$ and thats the best you faux green/banking clowns can come up with..?
    You should all hang your heads in shame..

    Liked by 2 people

  2. I think I had better get on Deliveroo and stock up on popcorn. Who doesn’t want to see these two going at it? Serious Netflix mini series potential.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. GEOFF

    Your list of signatories needs a big “[sic]” for its egregious omission of Mark Zachary Jacobson, … aargh!, … copy doesn’t work and I can’t find my magnifying glass!

    I can, however, guess what the New York link is, with its proposed 387 100MW concentrated solar blotches for that sunny state:

    Click to access NewYorkWWSEnPolicy.pdf

    Liked by 2 people

  5. CANMAN
    Yes, Mark Zachary Jacobson is a signatory, as is co-author Ingraffea, and that article is the link. The fact that Michael Mann seems to be the only other signatory outside Josh Fox’s small circle of artistic friends tells us something, I suppose.

    I should have pointed out that Josh Fox is the director of Gasland, the documentary which claimed that fracking was responsible for the water coming out of people’s taps bursting into flames. And also among the tiny number of nonentities who’ve signed his letter is a director of Films For Action, which was to have distributed the film.

    Liked by 4 people

  6. On the Film For Action involvement: as an appeal to Michael Moore to keep the film on YouTube for longer than he’d originally planned, this could hardly have been bettered.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. GC: ‘And also among the tiny number of nonentities who’ve signed his letter is a director of Films For Action, which was to have distributed the film.’

    Nope. FFA Inc is a tiny outfit that ‘curates’ links to stuff on YouTube and Vimeo. It never had any official connection with ‘Planet of the Humans’.

    The nonentitiesleading environmentalist thought-leadership leaders and thinkers who signed the letter could have googled up that non-connection in 30 seconds.

    As could the leading anti-environmentalist thought-leadership leader and thinker who wrote this blogpost.

    You’re all too busy being thought-leaders, I suppose.

    *

    I’ve only skimmed the film so far. One skim took me to a bit where RFK Jr was asked whether biomass should be a part of green energy. His response: ‘The great thing about green energy is you don’t have to pick a favo[u]rite.’

    Top TED-worthy thought-leadership there, RFK Jr!

    Like

  8. VINNY BURGOO
    Yes, I did see mentions (on Twitter?) that Films for Action were not the distributor for the film, as the first articles I read suggested. I can’t remember where I saw the names of Films for Action associated with the film, and when I went back to Bing to check I found the message: “Some results have been removed,” which linked to several pages of non-explanation:

    “Microsoft respects freedom of expression. If Microsoft receives requests to remove content from individuals, businesses, and governments, in limited cases, where quality, safety, user demand, relevant laws, and/or public policy concerns exist, Bing might remove results … Some pages captured in the Bing index turn out to be pages of little or no value …

    Sorry about the mistake. It’s not being a thought leader that takes up time. It was typing out a barely legible tweet so that this particular piece of environmental insanity wouldn’t be lost to posterity that took up time – about two hours. Since no-one else except Alex Cull in the entire sodding climate sceptic blogosphere is willing to do this stuff, I hope it’s time not too ill-spent.

    And I do appreciate everything you do in the way of digging up extraordinary details about the whole business. I think I’ve said it before: a whole encyclopaedia of climate madness could be compiled from links provided here in comments by Vinny Burgoo. If you ever decide to compile it, we’d love to publish it here in instalments.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. My criticism of you wasn’t sincere, GC. I got carried away with the ‘leading thought-leadership leaders and thinkers’ thing, is all.

    Thanks for the appreciation, though. Nothing very odd to offer at the mo.

    And thanks for the transcripts. I’ve added them to my collection of open letters from climate cultists.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. such as the 100% renewable energy plans for each state, over 150 countries and the world

    That such plans are entirely unworkable in practice is a bonus, not a problem for Fox, I suspect. They exist in papers written by good people, so must be good.

    And when someone comes along, as Moore has, and points this out Fox can only shout him down.

    It would be nice to see Moore make a sequel about how we cannot decarbonise 100%, no matter how hard we want to, and still have a civilisation worth keeping.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. VINNY BURGOO
    My mistake probably came from the Josh Fox tweet reproduced by CAQNMAN above:

    1) I just received notice that the distributor of Michael Moore’s #PlanetoftheHumans is taking the film down due to misinformation in the film. Thank you to @FilmsForAction for responding to our demand for a retraction and an apology…

    A demand and a response which I took as applying to the same people. Another inflammable piss take from Josh.

    I hope you keep your files in better order than I do.

    Liked by 3 people

  12. “The notion that solar and wind and other renewable technologies don’t work to produce energy in ways that are cheaper, more efficient and at low or zero carbon emissions over their life span flies in the face of everything engineers, scientists and energy planners have been writing in peer reviewed science for decades.”

    He’s getting the idea…

    Liked by 2 people

  13. Well, I read the green blob criticism in this piece first, then watched the film (today). Having read the criticism, I expected the film to be much worse than it was. Having watched the film, I find that the criticism is a bad joke.

    I can no longer find the link, but the other day I spotted that a speech being made by Christiana Figueres was taken down from its live platform half-way through because (I think) it violated the platform’s policies. She and her hysterical supporters went into full-on rant mode about this outrageous attack on freedom of speech. As it happens, I agree with her and them. I adopt the Voltaire position of disagreeing with what she says, but defending her right to say it. It’s disappointing, then, that their desire to preserve freedom of speech doesn’t apply to those who make disagreeable points that they can’t defeat by argument, and they demand things like the taking-down of this film, or that the BBC should never give any space to “deniers”.

    Their hypocrisy, as shown up in the film, is amply and amusingly demonstrated by their response to it.

    Liked by 4 people

  14. Quite, Mark.

    I found these reactions to be the epitome of sceptic reasonableness:

    I strongly agree. We are not the ideologues here. But this I think is a valid line of questioning for Panglossian sceptics:

    As Geoff has also posited, this is more like a depth charge going off in my view. The effects are deep in people’s minds and are still being worked through. What we need is to be as non-ideological as possible, to meet our new friends coming the other way.

    Liked by 3 people

  15. The other interesting thing, to me, is that Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs adopt a position which I believe to be perfectly tenable, namely a belief in man-made global warming combined with a deep concern about it (on the one hand) and a realisation that so-called renewable energy is neither so clean nor so green as is usually touted, and that it therefore is not the solution to their concern, and indeed might actually be making things worse (on the other hand).

    What amazes me is that so many believers in CAGW seem unable to make the simple step of accepting that there is no simple solution, no magic bullet, to solve the problem they are concerned about. It all points in the direction of CAGW fanaticism (as opposed to rational concerns regarding CAGW) being a quasi-religious belief system. It’s as though Moore and Gibbs are modern-day Luthers, still believing in the basic claims of the church but insisting that the church has lost its way, and that money has corrupted it. The true believers scream “heresy” by way of response. There’s no reasoning with them. Meanwhile the Pope puts the film on the banned list.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. By the way, completely O/T, and I hope our hosts don’t object, but it would be good to hear from Alan Kendall. I’m getting worried. He posted here a few days ago, in a way that suggested possible Covid-19 problems in his household, and he hasn’t been seen here or at Bishop Hill since, so far as I am aware.

    Alan, if you’re reading this, I hope you and yours are OK.

    Liked by 4 people

  18. @ Mark I also worry what has become of Alan, & am hoping he has better things to do (e.g. enjoying the sunshine in the back garden).

    The letter reads like a Year 6 pupil tasked with writing “a persuasive letter, with emotive and technical language, rhetorical questions, daring the reader to disagree, making opinions sound like facts, and using powerful verbs and strong adjectives (12 marks).” I’ve not commented so far because I was waiting for someone to say that it was a parody.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. JIT: “The letter reads like a Year 6 pupil tasked with writing ‘a persuasive letter…’”

    MARK HODGSON: “I find that the criticism is a bad joke.”

    It’s clear that filmmaker Josh Fox has never spent a minute reflecting on what he knows and believes about climate change. He flounders. Unfortunately the same seems to be true of our white knights Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs. I haven’t watched all their long promo for the film linked by Canman on the other thread

    but from what I’ve seen, they are just as unreflecting as Fox.

    It’s incredible that Michael Mann would sign this nonsense. I bet that no-one else from the climate establishment does.

    Liked by 3 people

  21. Michael Mann is a fully signed up climate agitator, with links to XR. He is on the advisory board of a group called the Climate Mobilisation. https://www.theclimatemobilization.org/advisory-board/
    Also a member is Aileen Getty, of the famous family, founder of the Climate Emergency Fund and major donor to XR.

    The Founder & Executive Director of Climate Mobilisation is Margaret Klein Salamon, also the fund raising executive for XR:

    Salamon describes herself as a “Climate Psychologist”, http://theclimatepsychologist.com/author/theclimatepsychologist/

    She claims the credit for having led the climate movement into emergency mode:
    “Leading the Public into Emergency Mode – A New Strategy for the Climate Movement”
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9HHPq85FjLGNmhVODlrY2VoOGM/view

    “Humanity is careening towards the deaths of billions of people, millions of species, and the collapse of organized civilization.

    In this paper, I will introduce the concept of “emergency mode” which is how individuals and groups function optimally during an existential or moral crisis — often achieving great feats through intensely focused motivation. I will argue that the goal of the climate movement must be to lead the public out of “normal” mode and into emergency mode. This has huge implications for the climate movement’s communication style, advocacy, and strategy.

    Because emergency mode is contagious, the best strategy is for climate activists and organizations to go into emergency mode themselves, and communicate about the climate emergency, the need for emergency mobilization, and the fact that they are in emergency mode, as clearly and emphatically as possible.”

    Her new book is out: https://twitter.com/climatepsych?lang=en

    Liked by 2 people

  23. GEOFF: “It’s incredible that Michael Mann would sign this nonsense.”

    You might find this tweet interesting. It’s from Mann’s buddy, Brian Dunning, who does the Skeptoid podcast and is a convicted felon for a cookie stuffing scheme against Amazon:

    Brad also had fun with it:

    Liked by 1 person

  24. @ Dennis
    “Humanity is careening towards the deaths of billions of people, millions of species, and the collapse of organized civilization.” She should have said “careering”, not “careening”. /pedantry (I’m not going to bother quibbling with the absurd claim itself.)

    I have now read the document, thank you (I think). It is a rich soup of fallacies, half-truths and exaggerations. Much is spent on the response to Pearl Harbour (not relevant to a climate crisis). False analogies are drawn (e.g. with “flow” in emergency situations). We have to let go of false narratives (no, not those ones; ones like “A zero emissions-only strategy (without drawdown and possible cooling) is all that is needed to protect us from climate catastrophe”).

    The bio at the end says of the author (Salamon), “Her life plan was to be a psychoanalyst in private practice, a writer, and have a family. Those plans began to feel less appealing as the reality of the climate crisis increasingly broke through her defenses.”

    Terribly sad that in these days some people can find no worthwhile purpose in life other than to hunt this particular unicorn.

    By the way, I imagine your house has an entire wall covered in pins and bits of string tracing the connections between climate organisations. Or am I wrong? (And are you going to publish it some day?)

    Liked by 3 people

  25. “It is very difficult to write this letter,”

    You should try reading it.

    The universe is trying to tell you something, Josh: stick to things that come easily.

    You could, say, squeeze out another lucrative bolus of docuganda replete with your unique brand of fake science. Then take a couple of hundred bucks from your pocket and outsource all your adult-literacy needs to an essay factory in Hyderabad.

    Liked by 5 people

  27. Geoff: The site says: ‘Think of it as Remainiacs,…just without quite so much Brexit.’

    BTW also OT, the second of my series on religiosity and climate cultural beliefs is up at Climate Etc. Just the typically erudite (not!) comments of Seitz and Co so far.

    Liked by 1 person

  28. @Dennis

    “Because emergency mode is contagious…”

    I can’t think of a better definition for ‘hysteria’ than ‘A contagious psychological state characterised by a sense of emergency’. I’ve never thought of hysteria as something that a so-called psychologist would wish to encourage.

    On second thoughts, hysteria does not require a sense of emergency, just a fear of missing out.

    Liked by 4 people

  29. Ah, they do love freedom of speech, don’t they?

    “Climate experts call for ‘dangerous’ Michael Moore film to be taken down
    Planet of the Humans, which takes aim at the green movement, is ‘full of misinformation’, says one online library”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down

    “A new Michael Moore-produced documentary that takes aim at the supposed hypocrisy of the green movement is “dangerous, misleading and destructive” and should be removed from public viewing, according to an assortment of climate scientists and environmental campaigners.

    The film, Planet of the Humans, was released on the eve of Earth Day last week by its producer, Michael Moore, the baseball cap-wearing documentarian known for Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine. Describing itself as a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows”, the film argues that electric cars and solar energy are unreliable and rely upon fossil fuels to function. It also attacks figures including Al Gore for bolstering corporations that push flawed technologies over real solutions to the climate crisis.

    Planet of the Humans has provoked a furious reaction from scientists and campaigners, however, who have called for it be taken down. Films for Action, an online library of videos, temporarily took down the film after describing it as “full of misinformation”, though they later reinstated it, saying they did not want accusations of censorship to give the film “more power and mystique than it deserves”. A free version on YouTube has been viewed more than 3m times.

    A letter written by Josh Fox, who made the documentary Gasland, and signed by various scientists and activists, has urged the removal of “shockingly misleading and absurd” film for making false claims about renewable energy. Planet of the Humans “trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points” that question the affordability and reliability of solar and wind energy, the letter states, pointing out that these alternatives are now cheaper to run than fossil fuels such as coal.

    Michael Mann, a climate scientist and signatory to Fox’s letter, said the film includes “various distortions, half-truths and lies” and that the filmmakers “have done a grave disservice to us and the planet by promoting climate change inactivist tropes and talking points.” The film’s makers did not respond to questions over whether it will be pulled down.

    Planet of the Humans has been shown at Moore’s Traverse City film festival, where the producer said it was “perhaps the most urgent film we’ve shown in the 15-year history of our film festival”. Jeff Gibbs, who wrote and directed the film, has suggested that unrestrained economic and population growth should be the target of environmentalists’ efforts rather than technological fixes.

    Climate activist Bill McKibben, one of the targets for the film for allegedly being influenced by corporate money and for supporting the burning of biomass such as wood chips for energy, said the characterisations are untrue. McKibben has previously changed his views on biomass energy, which he now sees as being detrimental to climate action, and claims he has “never taken a penny in pay” from any environmental group.

    “I am used to ceaseless harassment and attack from the fossil fuel industry, and I’ve done my best to ignore a lifetime of death threats from rightwing extremists,” McKibben said. “It does hurt more to be attacked by others who think of themselves as environmentalists.”

    Renewable energy has long been portrayed as expensive and unreliably intermittent by oil and gas companies and their lobby groups, which have spent several decades questioning the veracity of climate science and undermining efforts to radically reduce planet-heating emissions.

    In fact, the technology used for wind and solar energy has improved markedly in recent years, while the costs have plummeted. While electric cars often require fossil fuel-generated energy to produce them and provide the electricity to fuel them, research has shown they still emit less greenhouse gas and air pollutants over their lifetime than a standard petrol or diesel car.

    Generating all power from renewables will take significant upgrades of grid infrastructure and storage but several researchers have declared the goal feasible, most likely with carbon-capture technology for remaining fossil fuel plants. Scientists say the world must reach net zero emissions by 2050 to head off disastrous global heating, which would likely spur worsening storms, heatwaves, sea level rise and societal unrest.”

    Liked by 1 person

  30. In the Bunker podcast, Stephan Lewandowsky starts by saying that whenever there’s a frightening situation in which people feel that they have lost control some invariably resort to conspiracy theories to explain what’s happened.

    That sounds plausible. Lewandowsky himself, for example, thinks that Brexit is the result of a coup by a cabal of Tory fascists.

    Liked by 4 people

  31. Vinny, Lew has always been the best example of all of his theories, whether they’re right or wrong (his work way back when before jumping into the climate domain was both pretty mainstream and largely seemed like a reasonable contribution).

    Liked by 2 people

  32. “..In fact, the technology used for wind and solar energy has improved markedly in recent years, while the costs have plummeted…”

    Yes.
    We watched the improved technology in Moores documentary.
    It’s rubbish.
    Costs have plummeted?
    Great.
    Remove all the public subsidies..
    Thats not going to happen for a reason..

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Geoff (27 Apr at 8:26 am) talking of the “white knights Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs”:

    I haven’t watched all their long promo for the film … but from what I’ve seen, they are just as unreflecting as Fox.

    Mark quoting the Guardian today:

    Jeff Gibbs, who wrote and directed the film, has suggested that unrestrained economic and population growth should be the target of environmentalists’ efforts rather than technological fixes.

    I didn’t watch all the promo either, just a minute or two. I heard Michael Moore make the suggestion that the Covid lockdown is a great time for us all to *think*. That seemed such a good point that I didn’t bother with the rest but did some thinking instead.

    Mann says the filmmakers “have done a grave disservice to us and the planet by promoting climate change inactivist tropes and talking points.” Climate change inactivists? No no no. Climate change thinkers, Mike. Open-minded. Practical. Welcoming to those with different views, because the whole field is so complex that there’s always more to learn.

    I find it interesting that this time MiMa (as opposed to MiMo) didn’t dare call us deniers. I’d like to feel that someone had read my little question:

    And was thinking about it. That’s the spirit.

    Liked by 3 people

  36. Geoff

    are you suggesting it’s time to load the bunkum-seeking missiles, strap in and take the stealth debunker to the skies for a just-like-old-times debunking sortie?

    I just wonder if depleted uranium in the cranium isn’t too humane for Lewandowsky. Wouldn’t want to cut the Untergang festivities short. Perhaps a more traditional airlift—I’m thinking maybe a hamper of bullets (Couple’s Pack) and prussic acid, in enteric-coated capsule form for the gag-prone—just to let him and the Mister know we’re thinking of them?

    Like

  37. Richard

    I for one am content to be praised as a climate-change inactivist.

    Nor do I spurn ‘climate-change thinker,’ the designation you suggest.

    But there’s no dichotomy there. Mesuspects, humbly, a category collision of sorts?

    Climate-change thinkerism is a process, climate-change inactivism the product.

    (On the question of CAGW, skepticism and denial are synonyms—respectively—for the above.)

    Liked by 1 person

  39. When it came to providing the world with the information that really mattered about dendroclimatology was Michael Mann or Steve McIntyre the climate change inactivist?

    I’ll wait.

    Liked by 3 people

  41. Richard, was your last comment a response to me, i.e. to my point about “inactivist”?

    If so, I still don’t think we disagree on anything.

    Having said that, I read a Canadian interview/profile of Steve McIntyre years ago describing him as a Torontonian with the [leftist] politics of downtown Toronto who said he favored legislative steps to reduce CO2 emissions. Which means that he thought humans should Do Something about Climate Change. Which would make him NOT an “inactivist” at all.

    But as a climate change *thinker,* McIntyre may well have arrived at the correct [inactivist] position by now: no, humans should NOT lift a finger to mitigate Climate Change (unless there’s something we can do to prevent the next reglaciation).

    Or Ontario, perhaps—I can never remember the difference.

    Like

  42. Note that no matter what Steve McIntyre thinks about the goodness or badness or indifference of AGW, he will always be on My Side of the climate debate, because the climate debate I’m involved in is not about the climate, it’s about scientific integrity, for which Steve has long been a champion who deserves every possible prize, no matter what he thinks or doesn’t think about the likely future statistical properties of the molecules comprising the Earth’s fluid envelope.

    Liked by 4 people

  43. BRAD 29 Apr 20 1.09am

    I was thinking of an older bunker, but no matter. No need for your helpful humane hints. Going in there is more or less an admission that you’re never coming out.

    On remembering the difference between Ontario and Toronto – easy. Just remember that the latter is not an anagram of the former.

    Liked by 1 person

  44. The kickback continues at the rather unlikely place Capx.
    https://capx.co/planet-of-the-humans-is-not-dynamite-but-it-deserves-to-bomb/

    However it is not a very well thought out hatchet job on the film and suggests that the author is a little bit thick. He thinks he can debunk the claim that renewables are less polluting by quoting CO2 emission figures. As far as I know, ecological damage caused by felling trees, blowing the sides off mountains, scraping the tops off mountains, the toxicity of wastes from cobalt smelting plants or those places where they wrench away the various rare earth minerals from each other using extremely toxic substances etc is not easily measured in terms of emissions of CO2

    Liked by 1 person

  45. Dennis,

    I have a very clear memory of debating at some believalist blog circa 2014. I called Lewandowsky a “climate psychologist” and the resident denizens took offence and demanded I find any piece of letterhead on which his job was listed as such.

    See, back then, “climate psychologist” was an absurd phrase. They assumed—correctly—that I was mocking Lew.

    But somehow we’ve now become used to seeing those words—which should never even be seen in the same sentence—in the same phrase. This psychedelic insanity has been normalized.

    We no longer see the comedy. In fact you’re telling me someone called Salamon voluntarily calls herself by that the title I was once criticized for deriding Lewandowsky with, and she’s doing so in a manner we can safely presume is humorless (given that she’s a believalist) rather than self-effacing.

    I want to know what someone who’s just woken up out of a decade-long coma thinks when they hear a phrase like “centre for climate justice,” “climate ethicist,” “senior lecturer in climate psychology,” etc.

    I wish I could hear the English language through their ears for a day.

    Oh, the laughs I’d have.

    Liked by 1 person

  46. Two quick thoughts, given that I’m meant to be a cc thinker.

    First, it’s noticeable that people more widely than climate geeks have been thinking about stuff. Here’s an example from the last few minutes: a bit of history of the Ruby on Rails project, going back to Rails 3, which was released in August 2010:

    Not interesting to you perhaps. But Yehuda has a lot more to say on a foundational subject, as do some others. I think this kind of thing is going on across the board. Such thoughtfulness has to help us as climate sceptics, just as Michael Moore said. (He didn’t quite say that but that’s the way I interpreted what he did say.)

    Liked by 1 person

  47. To Brad on climate change inactivism: I was loathe to accept Michael Mann’s descriptor for you and me and I think you were unwise to accept it. Mann and his brainwashed cult would call McIntyre an inactivist, because Steve won’t put forward his own, alternative temperature reconstruction for the last 2000 years or whatever. You know that’s a totally false argument, I don’t need to rehearse that with you. I’m more focused on how much work Steve had to do to shed light on something that the IPCC put great weight on in 2001, completely unpaid, due to the obstructiveness of many others on comfortable salaries. I’m not accepting that word from the person at the pinnacle of that pyramid of injustice.

    But there’s a much bigger reason that I won’t accept it. I believe that you, Mann and I are all activists. And that’s because of the $1.5 trillion per year. You and I want to reduce that number, drastically. Mann wants to increase it, drastically – but he and his mates raking in the big bucks never say so in terms, because the $1.5 trillion a year is just a bit of an embarrassment. Moore and Gibbs have shone a vital light on what this ridiculous number has meant in practice – and, believe me, they have only scratched the surface. This is what made me cry at the end of the film. How dare Mann call me or any of us inactivists.

    Liked by 3 people

  49. Richard

    I understand your objection if you interpret the noun inactivist to mean non-activist, or lazybones, or whatever.

    I’ve always assumed it meant an activist for inaction against climate change.

    In my humble opinion, the second interpretation is more plausible for this reason: Mann et al. have never accused us of being *idle,* have they?

    In fact one of their favorite conspiracy theories is that there is an “active, concerted and vicious campaign to undermine action / fight the facts / ensure planetary suicide.”

    Mann wants his followers to be angry at us. Not for doing *nothing,* but for doing *everything in our supernaturally disproportionate power* to stop the world Doing Anything.

    And that’s a charge I’d wear proudly. I’d love to get a tattoo that says “I’m the reason you idiots didn’t burn a hecatomb of human capital on the altar of the imaginary problem of CAGW back in the early 21st Century and I got this tattoo in 2020 to show how confident I am, and I defy anyone else to have an earlier tattoo,” but I don’t think I could hack the pain.

    Like

  50. Richard,

    To put it another way, I think of myself as an inactivist because I call on the world to have “the courage to do nothing,” as Monckton puts it.

    I give the world the same advice I’d give my own son if he were a whingeing lil bee-hatch who was convinced there was a monster under his bed. Not that Keyes men raise such girly-boys, of course; this is purely a hypothetical.

    I’d tell him to have the balls to do nothing. Not even check under his bed to reassure himself. Definitely not leave his reading light on. Just man up and go to sleep.

    Once he’d made it through one night monster-free, he’d know what courage is, and I’d no longer be ashamed of him.

    We Keyeses hail from a long and glorious line of inactivists of whom nothing will ever be sung because when history called, we had the serenity to accept the problem that didn’t exist and therefore couldn’t be done nothin’ ’bout.

    Liked by 1 person

  51. Brad, I understand your position. (I’m late up due to Mac software upgrade futzing. Or it’s 6:05am and I’m up early. Either way random typing may occur.)

    My issue is the Big Lie that, as Greta said, again and again, last year, “We’ve done nothing!” Oreskes said the same on the BBC a year ago. $1.5 trillion per year isn’t nothing. If we had done nothing since 1988 then inactivism would be fine but that isn’t the case. You have to see that Mann’s term “climate change inactivists”, the evil people that he’s trying to warn Moore and Gibbs about, has this Big Lie embedded in it. I’m not prepared to concede the Big Lie because it’s ridiculous nonsense. I’m an activist to reduce the $1.5 trillion. And I’m deeply grateful to Moore and Gibbs for showing how disastrously it’s been spent. In part. In very small part.

    Liked by 4 people

  52. Richard,

    thanks for crystallizing the controversy.

    I still don’t quite agree with the logic. If Mann calls us inactivists, it doesn’t imply the *world* has done nothing, wasted no money, etc.

    It just implies (to me) that we skeptics WANT the world to stop acting and spending.

    Isn’t that true? Wouldn’t you reduce the 1.5 trillion to zero dollars if you had a magic wand? (I would.) Or do you think it’s only *somewhat* excessive?

    Unrelated, I think, is this: we may have shoveled Himalayas of hard-earned money at this nonsense, but it doesn’t follow anything’s actually been Done with it. It’s been embezzled. It’s lined the pockets of the Ron Oxburghs and Al Gores who appoint themselves to spend it on the planet’s behalf, yet never manage to actually turn the thermostat one second of one minute of one degree counterclockwise.

    I’ve said it before: the logic of alarmism depends on unrelenting panic, frenzied activity and zero action.

    To keep the revenue flowing, the public must continually be frustrated at the lack of action, enraged at the imaginary Merchants of Doubt who are imaginarily blocking the imaginary plans to act on the imaginary problem, and imagining all the horrible things that are about to happen to them because the Mexican stand-off still hasn’t been broken.

    It’s like the most cynical televangelist scam you can imagine: the worse their cancer gets, the easier it is to convince them that if they only send a SLIGHTLY bigger Love Offering this time, God would finally intercede on their behalf with the tumors.

    (Only they don’t actually have cancer at all—it’s just that the people asking for their money happen to be the same people doing their bloodwork and pathology and CT scans, which keep coming back with a report that states ‘It’s worse than we thought.’)

    Ordinary gullibles must be excited to a state of willingness to donate everything they own to the war effort against climate change, or against climate denial, or against Michael Moore, or whatever.

    Actually Doing Something would only decapitate the goose that lays the golden eggs.

    If the world Acted, then the public’s jingoistic hysteria would be replaced by an empty, anticlimactic disillusionment. Is that it? they’d ask. Is it just me or did all our actions make fuck-all difference to the weather, daily life, gender equality and regional conflict?

    And what does the climate hypocritocracy stand to gain from THAT?

    So the irony is, EVERYONE is a climate inactivist. The only difference is our side doesn’t pretend otherwise. And that’s why we’re poor and they’re rich.

    Liked by 2 people

  53. Richard,

    I sorta get your beef with the term now.

    You seem to be arguing that by calling us inactivists, Mann is suggesting that it’s a debate between good guys who’ve done ALMOST nothing, and bad guys who want them to do LITERALLY nothing.

    In other words, calling us inactivists subtly helps prop up the false narrative that the world hasn’t spent much money at all on the problem yet.

    If that’s what Mann is trying to do, I think he’s being too clever by half (which seems rather out of character for a guy who’s usually too stupid by half).

    It took me, what?, four comments to feel the connection between the epithet and the myth of little sacrifice.

    And that’s only because I’m bending over backwards to understand your objection.

    I really think if that’s what Mann et al are trying to do, the inuendo is going to be lost on the average person.

    More likely, I think, is that he’s doing something more primitive, something a high-school debater could have thought of.

    He’s making an oh-so-clever pun on “activist” in order to portray us (correctly!) as people who oppose wasting ANY time or effort on a problem that every bien-pensant person “knows” is a looming Ragnarok.

    He’s pointing out, to the converted, how antithetical our ideas are to theirs, how incompatible our vision for the future is with what they’re convinced is necessary.

    To the majority of people, who tend to think SOMETHING ought to be done (though not if it costs them more than a few cents a week), Mann is accusing skeptics of wanting to spend $0.00.

    He’s attempting hate speech, but (if you ask me) all he’s achieving is accurate speech.

    Liked by 1 person

  54. Great piece by Robert Bryce in Forbes on Thursday leading to these tweets:

    Here are two paras from Bryce:

    I have plenty of criticisms of Planet of the Humans. It’s an anti-human film that ignores our need for affordable and reliable energy to survive. It ignores the need for nuclear energy to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and it completely ignores the scourge of energy poverty. That’s an inexcusable omission given that about one billion people on the planet today have no access to electricity and another two billion or so are only using tiny amounts of juice.

    But it’s also apparent that Planet of the Humans is an important film. The fact that Moore — the most successful documentary-film-maker in America as well as its most famous liberal who’s not a politician – would produce a film that attacks wind energy, solar energy, the Sierra Club, Al Gore, David Blood, Bill McKibben, and Vinod Khosla represents a rupture in left-leaning orthodoxy about energy and climate change. For causing so much trouble, Moore and Gibbs are being branded as apostates. To my ear, the outrage coming from Fox, McKibben, and others to Planet of the Humans sound like Greta Thunberg’s now-famous cri de coeur: “How dare you!”

    The piece then deals with the excellent news that Fox-ally Marc Jacobson has just lost a SLAPP suit: “On April 20, Jacobson was ordered to pay the legal fees of Chris Clack, the Colorado mathematician who Jacobson sued in 2017 for $10 million on claims that Clack had defamed him.”

    Liked by 2 people

  56. Yes, superb oldbrew. For those who hate going outside the confines of Cliscep, where it is well-known we all agree with each other about everything (ha!), here’s that clip:

    Strangely my one investment in a movie to stream during the lockdown is the old Tom Cruise/Gene Hackman classic The Firm, in which much of the action – both scuba diving and murders – is set in the Cayman Islands. Cruise tries to outwit both the Mafia and the Department of Justice. It’s hard to tell them apart sometimes. He says looking at ex-Vice President Gore and his moneyed mate called Blood.

    Liked by 1 person

  57. Have only just ventured this far back in Cliscep archives to discover what I was missing whilst in the many arms of Covid. I came across the concern expressed here from many. I am truly touched by this.

    Liked by 3 people

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.