Planet of the Humans

Anything About Anything...
Post Reply
Word
Reverse Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 4258
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:13 pm

Planet of the Humans

Post by Word »

I was wondering if you've seen Planet of the Humans and what you make of it?

I used to think I was informed at least slightly above average on climate change etc. but I now feel hopelessly naïve when it comes to what terms like "biogas"/"renewable energy" actually mean. The film noticeably doesn't touch on the subject of the "Fridays for Future"-movement and Greta Thunberg and I guess that's because the makers of the film feel a profound sympathy for them (as do I)*, but they do show some American students protesting for a better environment who seem to be just as misguided when they demand renewables. I also used to think Al Gore's activism was sincere, but the final chapter of the film makes him look like a complete fraud. There seems to be mounting criticism that some details of the film are false or inaccurate (e.g. Wind power plants compensate the CO2 that was used for their construction after so-and-so many months, but that's not the point of the film. the point of the film is how much other space/materials/resources/animal species are used up for the sake of energy supply and how even more nature is destroyed in comparison to dirty old coal and fossil fuels). Still, my impression is that the big picture painted here is, for the most part, faithful to reality and the energy industry indeed bought the loudest voices in climate activism. And there's really no other, remotely realistic way to save the planet except a global one-child policy or some mass extinction event....anyway, this film, whether the presented facts are just a little or completely exaggerated, really shook me to my core. I'm not sure if that's an endorsement. Don't watch it in a moment when you're already feeling bad.

*This is also part of the criticism surrounding the movie, e.g. columnists writing the film doesn't "dare"(!) criticizing Greta Thunberg and her followers. In my opinion that's a rather dumb criticism of a film whose main "targets" are big corporations and whose production company came already under pressure not to release the documentary. As far as we know, Fridays For Future and Greta don't have ties to the energy industry, but they do listen to climate scientists. The only admonishment one can make is that they don't seem to listen to all other scientists as well, e.g. when it comes to population growth; maybe this will change now.
User avatar
kyle
Reverse Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 1876
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2006 3:33 pm
Location: Indiana, USA, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe, Multiverse
Contact:

Re: Planet of the Humans

Post by kyle »

I've only watched the first 20 minutes of it, but I'm already struggling with it. I made it up to 40 minutes while writing this, and that's where I stopped watching.
This is really making "clean energy" look bad. I also think there have been great advancements since the content of that video was produced. I would not be surprised if some oil company funded this. Yes, there are some flows with clean energy now, but this just manipulates it out of proportion.

They are basically saying the following:
- Ev's are just carbon burning cars, since it pulls energy from the grid that is not renewable
- Solar, anything over 5% efficiency is expensive, and it takes up a lot of space
- Wind, takes a up a lot of space and requires Grid to be powered by idling generators

With Ev's sure it uses the grid to charge, but they fail to mention, you charge EV's at night, when they have excess power that is not being used. So yes it's not clean, but it's using power that would otherwise have been wasted.

As for the grid with solar and wind flaws, I turn to Tesla's solutions. Solar and battery. A lot of the facts they mentioned around them are outdated. Tesla Gigfactory Nevada, was connected to the grid, while being constructed, the plans are to remove those lines once finished. In fact what they showed was in it's early stages before they even had solar installed on the roof.

I think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3AmtjqqVvo speech from Elon Musk at the Paris climate talks, touches more on how we get to clean energy.
Another point is battery technology has been advancing super fast, Next month Tesla is going to give a presentation on their new technology.

Overall It takes time to make the changes, but not doing anything, is far worse than doing something even if it is worse for a short period of time. We are probably still about a decade from that switch to net positives, Although COVID-19 shut-downs really helped a lot.
Image
Post Reply