This isn't really a Michael Moore film (link below). He was only an Executive Producer, not the Director or primary Producer. This is a Jeff Gibbs documentary; he was co-producer of "Fahrenheit 9/11" & "Bowling for Columbine". He's a long-standing and legitimate environmentalist. [Side Note: my own environmentalism started about 1970.]
Because it's critical of primarily mega-sized Green Energy projects, the political Left already is attacking the film. "Misleading... dangerous... destructive." More than Mega Green Energy, though, this documentary is disapproving of the developed world's pursuit of seemingly unlimited growth and ever-expanding consumption. Those are Sacred Cows, and almost no one is willing to risk challenging them. Too bad, because they need to be challenged above all else. The problem is not only fossil fuels. Pursuing infinite growth (including infinite population growth) and expanding consumption on finite Earth is dooming us to disaster.
In addition to everyday people, Gibbs interviews authors in this field, academics/scholars in sociology, anthropology, engineering, ecology, et. al., as well as experts in industry, social psychology, the Law, and environmental activism (such as Bill McKibben and RFK, Jr.). On top of that, he includes relevant News and/or Briefing clips of well-known politicians (Bloomberg, Gore, Obama, and others), plus industry spokesmen.
The only error I've found in the film so far is a brief segment that seems to claim sewage sludge is not "biomass". It is biomass, Mr. Gibbs. In my view, that's a minor error. Overall, this is a "turning-point" film that's right on the mark. I suspect that John Muir (Conservationist and Founder of the Sierra Club), Bucky Fuller (genius inventor and author of "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth"), Roger Revelle (pioneering climate scientist who studied global warming as early as 1957), and Barry Commoner (Biologist/Ecologist and author of "The Closing Circle", 1971, in which he said that the U.S. economy needed to be restructured to be in harmony with Nature) all would agree. I'm guessing the critics of this film know little to nothing about any of those great men. Point being: I suggest everyone should ignore the neophyte environmentalists (& others) who are criticizing this crucial film.
A significant portion of the doc legitimately criticizes the burning of whole trees (after they're shredded/ground into chips) in biomass power plants. Trees are the last thing we want to use for that purpose. They convert atmospheric CO2 into O2; burning them creates CO2. Hello.
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Below is an email (slightly edited) I sent to family & a few friends encouraging them to watch this film. The title of the email is in quotes.
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"Probably the Most Controversial and Important Film You'll See This Decade"---
Shortly after it starts, if you think you know what it will be about... you don't. Plus, don't miss the postscripts interspersed among the film credits at the end. Finally, if the orangutan scenario close to the end doesn't get to you, you're not very human... or humane.
A few things this doc illustrated to me (or reminded me of)---
1. Paul Ehrlich (author of "The Population Bomb", 1968) was correct; it's only his timeline that was a bit off.
2. The political Left gets propagandized probably just as much as the political Right... & often buy into it.
3. Industrial-sized Green energy has monumental problems.
4. The Powers-That-Be (including those on the Left) are tinkering around the edges of humanity's greatest physical/material problem.
5. Just as important as (or perhaps more important than) our sources of energy are: our consumption & lifestyle; and our attitude toward life other than humans, as well as toward Nature in general. This philosophy in the developed world of ever-expanding consumption and infinite economic growth (along with infinite population growth) needs to be discarded. Even dolts know that Earth is finite, not infinite.
6. Many things, if not most, are gray rather than black or white.
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Not only my opinion.
Think out-of-the-box.
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