in dog donaldson you could use a sort of p.c. maybe a sword a yes or no for. training for justice on oxy. welcome to on contact today we discuss the censorship of michael moore's film planet of the humans with the director jeff perhaps as a form of denial to actually a set of understanding that what this civilization industrial civilization the human species we're getting limits and we're going to crash we're insets kind of hoping that this fantasy will save us if as i discover that i'm not saying that all environmental leaders are on the take that one of the things that their critics ignore is that the shocking list of things that you die when you die festering fossil fuels and you invest in supposedly sustainable you wind of investing in big ag you want to invest in and mining and banks and all this that's part of thomas

hardy talked about. michael moore and jeff gibbs released a film in april called planet of the humans it was a frontal assault on the failures of the environmental movement accusing it of peddling false leads and selling out to corporate donors it derided the idea that we can hope the current eco side with renewable energy the film lambaste environmentalist for celebrating the replacing of coal plants with so-called natural gas plants and then calling these natural gas plants clean or green or describing the burning of trees as a renewable energy source whatever you think of the film it is factually incontrovertibly that the leading environmental groups by misreading the nature of power have failed. the activism protests lobbying petitions appeals to the united nations and misguided trust in liberal politicians such as barack obama and now

gore along with the work of countless n.g.o.s have been accompanied by a 60 percent rise in global c o 2 or carbon dioxide emissions since 1900 during the last decade the increase in c o 2 was 102200 times faster than what the earth experienced during the transition from the last ice age the united nations estimates this will be augmented by a 40 percent rise in c o 2 emissions in the next 10 years we are now at $417.00 parts per 1000000 of c o 2 in the air it is believed to be the highest concentration since humans evolved we will embrace a new paradigm 2 for resistance or die joining me to discuss the film and the reaction to it by environmentalists is jeff gibbs. so let lay out

jeff what you i think did quite successfully what you sought to do in the film and then we'll talk a little bit about how it's been attacked and and finally censored forcing you to take it down off of you tube so to just for people who haven't seen it and also tell people how they can see it. talk about what you did well 1st i want to make a nature film i was thinking oh if we only make a film and finally make a film showing how bad things are finally at long last look at it and friends were telling me no no you sort of know that it's bad i'm like no no i'm just convinced i could do it so as i making my gauger film on the kind of name of the natural world i began to discover the green energy isn't really what the same chart for scotto solar festival and they say they're probably not solar and turns out there are instant generators and generators were enough they're plugged into the grid so it's my journey of everyone let me just interrupt you now because it's not you do that and then 10 years later you go to another hero and found them all and there's still

generators while on the stage they're announcing that it's all powered with solar panels yet dennis hays a founder of earth a and the you know people say oh you've got older units although your documentary stick place over time this is my journey of discovery that every time i peek behind the curtain it wasn't what it seemed and it gets worse and worse i discover that there's a secret bio mass of bio fuels which are really the lion's share green energy around the world and. so it and then. you know what why is this happy why are we in denial and i discover the relationship with capitalism industrialism and how. basically shockingly to me because i was a hippie living in the blitz but i could just you know have these innocent little solar panels but i despair of all that or maybe and. how industrial this is i'm basically without a giant industrial civilization you're not going to have a nuclear power plant you're not going to have a solar panel you're not going to have even some of the technology to produce gas and oil is just so complex now so it's really my discovery and that we're looking.

the perhaps is a form of denial to actually instead of understanding that what this civilization industrial civilization the human species were hitting limits and we're going to crash we're in sets kind of hoping that this fantasy will save us and as i discover that i'm not saying that all environmental leaders are on the take but one of the things that their critics ignore is that the shocking list of things that you die when you die pass from fossil fuels and you invest in supposedly sustainable you want to be investing in big ag you want to investigate and mining and banks and all this that part of them is hardly talked about you know you want to be bill mckibben . you know who's you know been a bit a hero to me you know at times on stage with somebody that worked for goldman sachs agreeing to help raise $40.00 to $50.00 trillion dollars and so you have to ask

yourself even if everything we say about renewables is true you're still driving it stop powering this industrial civilization this driving us off the cliff so that's my journey of my discovery and really my plea to recognize that the only way. you know we've got to create community we've got to regain control from capitalism industrialism and you know this this civilization with almost 8000000000 people especially at the level of consumption what that would make romans blush. is just it's unsustainable and you've written and talked about abbott everything i read about civilizations is they have an expiration date. and we're in design rise 12 yet so right one of the things that i thought the film did very well was implode the myth that for instance solar panels. are are in any way going to address the crisis and i didn't know until i saw the film that it's not just glass

in the process of making solar panels itself is environmentally very destructive just mention that none will go into how the film's been attacked sure the traditional that the most council of house calls it will take you so look at it which i said i see it i was on the phone and as a producer we spent years trying to figure out where they got banned and finally we discovered through industry sources that takes rare might ports and then we discovered that you actually have to put not only you have to use a lot of energy but you have to put coliform of carbon right in the furnace just to process the courts and the same is true of steel and cement all the things a power does your civilisation and all of the so-called alternatives they want to make solar panels without so it can well that you have to use some other toxic material one of them is so toxic that they recommend not putting it on the rooftops so i began to realize there's no easy way out at this level and maybe you realize that a while ago and then the other thing i say what the time is it runs out like extinction

rebellion extinction isn't just about climate we're in this huge biodiversity collapse as well that even if we stop climate that's still going to proceed so really it's too much to jam into and our have come but. if i tried my best. so the film was savagely attacked i don't think that word is. hyperbolic by bill mckibben ahead of 350 dot org by the filmmaker josh fox. by naomi klein fox started an action letter that described the film as dangerous misleading and destructive we wrote an article for the nation with the headline meet the new flak for oil and gas michael moore who produced the film with you and call the film unscientific outdated full of false odes and benefiting fossil fuel industry promoters and climate deniers and then on may 28th i think it right and racked up

over 8000000 views and over in just over a month they got the pressure so you tube removed the film they justified taking down the film you've since put up a different version. they justified taking it down because of. what they said was a 4 2nd piece of footage that supposedly violated copyright laws. and that's what i found so disturbing. is that the censorship of the film being cheered on by the left. and of course major digital platforms have already marginalized or banished many of us including myself on the left. and so talk a little bit about the response and then let's go into the censorship because michael moore is a very well known filmmaker we're not talking about you know these outliers like alex jones. yeah it's really and what you went through was really. dismayed at what

others went through. you know your in a fantastic author i've learned so much for you and just you know. it's just frightening to think about what's happens to people that they're step outside of the the boundaries and to be accused of profiles of those you know. anyone pay attention might realize fahrenheit 911 is about this god awful horrible war for oil and corporate power we've we literally feared for our lives all making that it's hard to look back on that time now but we kept our drapes closed. because of the saudis and the bin ladens and the oil companies. you know the the bushes i mean you name it and that you know i can't tell you the anguish making a film like that put us through it and so the ironic thing to me is that. you know what we're showing you and everybody's got the right to their own opinion and their own stories i believe that this false promise that renewables are going

to displace. fossil fuels as lead us to a situation where which where you describe with the possible you use just keeps going up and up and up and that happens for a couple reasons it's both because of as you see in a company intermittency which we tend to laugh op is such a profound issue in michigan solar only can produce about 30 percent of the available energy you know so if they're rated at $190.00 watts they can only produce like 30 percent of that because of the intermittency so what we want to have is a whole array of natural gas class plants being built out. and so you don't see a decrease and worse because nobody calls out the growth in the capitalistic expansion the imperialism that you talk about we do the machine just keeps growing so we got nuclear we didn't get off color while we just kept using it and if it everything they say was true about solar and wind we would just this machine would

just keep using more and consuming more and what they don't want to talk about is that all around the world we observe got a new form of imperialism. you know almost slavery in the form of mining and we really underestimate the amount of money that's happening on this planet and especially in the southern hemisphere where we can't see it you know lithium iron copper cobalt as you see quickly in the film these are really contribute 10 percent of global energy emissions the energy needed for mining. so it's just you know like the censorship the attacks were both dismaying and the same time kind of like it made me realize what a threat the movie as to that josh fox started the attacks on us with the like he said that our distributor pulled the file. we were the only distributors through you tube so even the film for action that he said pulled the film called him and

said that's not true. if you still kept it going you got picked up in usa today i don't know if you found this and i want to talk a little bit about what it is i think you attacked and i and i think that these people are. and i know all of them i think they're in the business of selling hope they're not in the business of speaking truth. and it's a false hope as your film i think correctly documents. but i wondered if you could comment on that because when you're in the business of selling hope that's a form of advertising and in many cases a form of moral posturing and self promotion yes selling hope you know this is i think hope weirdly enough is what happens in the business world you know if you get a job for a corporation or a company or a logging company or. you know which of a company you know they don't want to hear the problems they want to hear the solutions and it's it might sound weird to people that's amazingly corporate to be

focused on the hope. it's also allows us to just keep doing what we're doing. and i think that's a problem that we're just going to keep doing so we got off the cliff but i heard that all making the film was all you got to give people hope and i think i learned this from you is that you know when. to stuff a city in the family you can make a plan based on reality if you don't make a plan based on reality you're won't. so i actually think this summer also opened you can watch no i would agree i always feel that you know i don't believe in manipulating information to sell hope i'm but of course especially given the climate crisis. it is it is dark foreboding and frightening we're going take a break when we come back we'll continue our conversation with director jeff gibbs about his film planet of the humans

'd. i think the biggest danger that's come out. as you destroy us is it's highlighted the shoot-in equality that exists and i think one of the things that education. changes access to the internet for educational purposes needs to be i think to this depth and surely. it's. my no no crowd. no

shots. actually there's a bell to be. struck no posts. which your thirst for action. welcome back to on contact we continue our conversation with director geoff gibbs about the film he made with michael moore planet of the humans so before the break we were talking about that notion of selling hope and i think you're right that it you know it's it's that mania for hope that in fact some american culture and very easily slides into self delusion and illusion which i think given the catastrophic failure of the environmental movement i read the statistics at the opening of the show. is it is counterproductive to everything

that we want but talk a little bit about. because the as you pointed out the attacks were vicious and personal but by blame this information out it's not just that you shattered this narrative positive hopeful happy narrative that we can you know win win mill or win farm our way out of this. but i think also the film. said something about the prominent most prominent environmentalists that at its core probably triggered most of the anger what was that i think it's just seeing them in their relationships with the billionaires in the in our corporate leaders and i think don't think it is talked about enough you know we don't see just don't see or you know forming a partnership with david blood a former c.e.o.

. we're sort of perlman sachs we formed a partnership before inconvenient truth came out. like that part of the films ever even mentioned it's like how come that's the conflict of interest want to want to be set up to profit from a film that you're making and not even reveal that and i think people have tried to talk about gore's relationship in this property from the us and it just gets blown up bill mckibben who's on many wonderful things but i think he took a wrong turn once you're on stage with a man from go up the same man from goldman sachs and you're promising to lead the charge for one thing. for both gore and the cabinet once you make that commitment that prevents you from being a free thinker was a sierra club forms a partnership with michael bloomberg it does michael bloomberg it changes the sierra club it change does bill mckibben get change or does a billionaire it's changed i think what however well intended we want to get it

changed. you know there's so many ridiculous attacks or not like we never i never accused the mckibbin of taking money i don't know what his finances are but i do know that the people your relationship with the facts you deeply i've seen people universities and the you've probably seen this in your lifetime as i come to lay people off the reason why they lay off their lower people cause all that their friends from among other things i've seen are to college or they laid off you know tons and tons of students and faculty and staff rather than lay off one vice president you know who could begin to say the same amount of money. so yeah i'm just stunned that they don't see you nobody's talking about. bill mckibben in the sierra club promoting these reinvestment funds and then they contain the very banks including black rock. the sierra club and the $350.00 have campaigns against them they include the very biomass plants you know even as we wrapped up the film

210-2020 these funds still contain these giant biomass. operations weyerhaeuser the blocky company and this one in florida i'm blanking on the name right now but it's cited by the sierra club in their op ed saying that they hate biomass so you know i take them at their words enough so they also they also don't like showing bill mckibben endorsing a small biomass plant in a military college my point is if you're one of the environmental leaders of the planet and you happen to endorse a small clean coal plant nobody would think that was a one off. something mckibben writes are only heard about that are out there. mckibben writes in rolling stone on that issue and says that yes you are right he did endorse it but then he changed his position and you did note that how would you respond because the double messaging of the environmental movement is noted in the

file that they say one thing and they do another if you really. they offer very biomass plant your door to be closed if you're a guest pole you're going to copper topass to be coal close you're not just going to write an op ed so that there's kind of agreement there were $100.00 something models about how that was going to be affected $100.00 of them contained biomass and biofuels you know just this last few months the democratic bills before congress for clean energy contained bio mass abuse so biomass this at all this you know there's no visible opposition to this so to me it was just a cia thing to write these op eds in the sierra club of the same thing so that's it was noted that there is a mixed. message about biomass and i thought that was sufficient because if you the mckibbin right now if you want to actually be against biomass join us in closing down and removing these from all the legislations around the world and have 350 put it on the top of their platform then we'll look would begin the conversation let's

talk a little bit about what are what we do have to do in order to save ourselves from this impending eco side of you open the film asking the question at this point whether it's possible clive hamilton lovelock others have come to the conclusion that it's not we're finished especially since so much heat is stored in the oceans you know even if we stopped all carbon emissions today which isn't happening. carbon emissions will continue to rise. exponentially but but i mean i think what the film does well is lay out the crisis that faces us and how little or no time we have left. but talk about what we you know what we do have to do what the kinds of things we should be doing yeah purposely don't go into a lot of specifics in the phone because to me breaking the spell that this climate

this environmental movement the. it's an embed with corporate america is going to save us as the 1st shot the next astute to really come to terms with accepting that we're in the end game right now and if you're not human collapses already the deal across the planet we've lost what 90 percent of the large fish in the ocean there's a study in germany 75 percent of insects died off like 30 years so i really do think it's true that the extinction rebellion is probably the closest to accepting the extinction is real it's happening and once we begin that i think we have to work on multilevel so i mean there's where is a un climate conference that actually talks about how we're going to end growth you know that. that discussion doesn't happen even though people will speak about growth and everybody knows this truth is not part of the conversation so i actually think the 1st step is making it part of conversation but here where i live in northern michigan you know we go up we put up windows and solar panels but we were

not yet at the airport doubled in size you know the traffic has tripled here so both on the macro level and on the local level we've got away from really funky. for what we used to fight for this induction machine has to be slowed well look to that. it will cross the planet and there's so many local battles what we're doing is like the monarch butterflies are tied up you know where's a campaign to not. have laws anymore or to not be plowing up the roadside is just i think it's a way a callback to what many of us have known in their environmental origins but we got away from if you want to suppress your money going to but you might use you know buy a plant that could be set aside better yet by a plant that indigenous people could take over many of the right way you know manage live live you know cooperate of lee what's up hopefully will deal with down the road is a good question but i think what i'm dismayed is that you can't you're not even

allowed to have the story. a story out there questioning. you know whether the dominant story is true and that that's extremely frightening to me because we've been we've tried to we submitted op eds to many mais republication people turned away newsweek wrote an attack piece they refused to acknowledge our. response several liberal web sites i don't know if you read this but i was shocked they won't print this so we're hoping what will come out is not just the aren't leadership but. many of these people if not all of them receive funding from the same big foundations rockefeller's. was the one in sweden the rasmussen foundation that's mentioned in the film with the duncan stumbles over. we're all in bed with. or billionaires directly or indirectly in the environmental movement one of the things you confront is population growth and you have a graph in the film you know that population had remained steady in till the

industrial revolution. and that also is kind of an anathema for the left yeah that's. what's ironic about it clearly population is actually i've been put the population movement does not talk about consumption does not talk about grow industrial growth or is not enough and so i actually included the population because that's just a biological reality that everything from the united nations reports to the w w f acknowledges this this growth but i actually added in the consumption on top of it to show that that's what tenshi to that you know by from a factor of 10 to a factor of 100 and i think that's where we need to start with dealing with this growth machine and in the short term we have enough resources to take care of everyone and i think population will take care of itself if we do a better job of taking care of people i want to. and by talking about the danger of

this kinds of censorship because when the left cheers doesn't historically what they don't realize is that they're the primary target that it's always you know those figures or entities on the fringes that are attacked and used as a justification for shutting down discourse and i kind of see that happening with you and michael moore yeah i mean if i wasn't for michael i think we'd be in big trouble because this is my 1st film and i'm not a public figure you know we're still waiting for the you tube to decide you know what to do it and our options are limited use seems like the internet opens things up but you've got you tube video people barely heard of which is subject to the same kind of rules you've got what facebook i mean where do we go other than assembly somewhere to do this you know overseas or something and some server and

just to be clear these 4 seconds that we're claiming that was of a rare earth mine in china that's at the core of where all of our mother and i try to come from and show this toxic lake stretching to the horizon. the fact that we can't show that is is painful and it's it's kind of frightening in a way because that's at the heart of the solution but if we can't fair use that word we're not going to go to china right i'm not going to go to china again let us in to film the slate. so that we can't use this little piece of history is a horrible horrible precedent. and then writ large would be shut out just to get our responses out that that is shocking you can go to our website at the humans we posted many of them but we've got to do something about this and i invite people to emails from the website or from facebook or whatever at least we've got to break this i don't know how we break it chris you've been victimized by the same. and

there are all google facebook there already twitter using algorithms to shut people such as myself out i mean that this is a process that's already begun and of course which you have now experience. thanks jeff that was jeff gibbs director of the film planet for the him.

it's fair to say many of the protesters on the streets of america want social justice nominally speaking that's a positive message the problem is that message is translated into concrete political demands and with it if you don't agree with those political to. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world the politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. the.