By Amelia Tiemann, published at 4th Generation on June 9, 2020
As “Planet of the Humans” reveals, clever marketing might be our worst enemy when it comes to stopping climate change.
The new Michael Moore-produced film, which premiered on YouTube in April and received over 8 million views in its first month, revealed the false promise of renewable energy and exposed some high-profile lies and deception within the environmental movement itself. The film showed that renewable energy, despite promises from environmental leaders about its potential to seamlessly take the place of fossil fuels, cannot possibly carry total global energy decarbonization on its back. (Read our review here.)
It also revealed severe defects in decades of popularized messaging about decarbonization. Back when the environmental movement first began gaining momentum, packaging and marketing the “too much consumption” message was crucial to the movement’s survival. The virtuous image of “green” renewable energy was part and parcel of the narrative of a “return to nature.” This meant consuming less, and using the sun and wind for our energy needs — since they were renewable, people thought that meant they could provide us with endless energy without violating nature. As we learn in Planet of the Humans, this couldn’t be more inaccurate.
I saw this film about the time it hit the web. I thought it hit all the right points, pulling back the curtain on the deceits of the “renewables” lobby. Unfortunately, this has not gotten through to groups like Citizens Climate Lobby.
I caught your latest piece at 4th Generation blog. You’ve obviously got the ecomodernist POV down pat. Nice going.
Any chance you can fix the silly text colors here? They’re ridiculously and almost unreadably low-contrast. The HTML default is black-on-white for a reason.