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The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby C8 » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 15:46:14

Just watched the "Planet of the Humans" documentary. Its up for FREE to watch on You tube and there are NO commercials. be careful if you search for it, as another movie has that title too- here is the link to the full show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE&t=2s

I debated whether to put this thread under the Environment or the Peak Oil Topic category. It mainly deals with how "green energy" really isn't- so it could go both ways. A pure Peak Oiler would find the whole thing entirely familiar. Leftest film maker Michael Moore got into a bit of trouble with environmentalists by helping to produce this for director Jeff Gibbs and some distributors have pulled support after an outcry by green groups. Currently, the full video is on You Tube but I don't know how long that will last.

This is the best Peak Oil/Environmental movie I have seen in over 10 years. I highly recommend viewing this- especially while it is still up.

The basics:
The documentary follows director Jeff Gibbs as he looks at how green energy has been co-opted and consumed by capitalism. Gibbs himself is from Michigan and much of the footage is too. Its pretty stunning how environmentally damaging green has become. The video segments are so powerful i can't begin to describe them- this is one of those things you just have to watch to really understand.

Details:
*Most of green is actually bio-fuel, which is actually cutting down forests
*Billionaires have rushed into every aspect of green energy and corporatized it
*Most big environmental groups are funded by fossil fuel related businesses
*Renewable energy really isn't renewable at all and depends on massive fossil fuel investment
*Wind and solar projects don't really last that long and scar nature very much
*People are getting filthy rich off of the green revolution

Some scenes that stood out:
*The desolation of abandoned solar farms
*The enormousness of wind turbines and how difficult it will be to dispose of them when they die (as is happening)
*The mass destruction of forests for bio-fuels
*The "celebration of solar" concert that had to switch to powering the music band by generator when it started raining
*The totally misleading commercials about how clean renewable energy is

The final takeaway:
Environmentalism needs to go back to its roots and emphasize a reduction in population and per person energy consumption.
Humans need to accept limits

Here is my belief that humans can accept limits: the odds are less than this.....

Image

But do watch this film please- its for Peak Oilers and environmentalists. It is one thing to talk about a subject but stunning to actually see (plus I want somebody to talk to about it!)
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby sparky » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 16:27:28

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Watching now ,comments to follows later :)
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby sparky » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 17:44:05

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This is a clear headed overview of the "renewable alternatives "
I would be surprised if any greenies care or can comment on it

the greatest censure is silence
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby evilgenius » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 17:48:58

But you can use renewables to pump water uphill, from where it is plentiful. From the top of the hill it can flow down, all the way across the country. Along the way, it can flow through I don't know how many turbines. All you need is a plumbing system designed to respond to the vagaries of climate change. It would use the water being transferred to also make power.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby C8 » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 18:46:14

evilgenius wrote:But you can use renewables to pump water uphill, from where it is plentiful. From the top of the hill it can flow down, all the way across the country. Along the way, it can flow through I don't know how many turbines. All you need is a plumbing system designed to respond to the vagaries of climate change. It would use the water being transferred to also make power.


Yeah, the storage issue is addressed a little bit in the movie but I wish they did more with it. The main thing about renewable energy is how damned intertwined it is with fossil fuels. The storage industry will probably create a million landfills of toxic waste for future generations. It will be one of the largest manufacturing projects ever conceived and require massive inputs from fossil fuel plants. Talk about a disposable economy!
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby JuanP » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 19:49:47

evilgenius wrote:But you can use renewables to pump water uphill, from where it is plentiful. From the top of the hill it can flow down, all the way across the country. Along the way, it can flow through I don't know how many turbines. All you need is a plumbing system designed to respond to the vagaries of climate change. It would use the water being transferred to also make power.


It takes more energy to pump water up than you can make from it coming down, otherwise all water dams would be capable of generating continuous energy forever. I think it has something to do with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and inevitable energy losses in every use of energy. IIRC pumped water storage and energy generating systems are about 80% efficient, so there is around a 20% loss in potential energy every time you cycle the water up and down. These systems are useful under certain circumstances as energy storage systems, but they do not generate energy. In Uruguay we use them to pump water up on hydroelectric dams when we have excess amounts of wind energy available, but there are inevitable losses in every energy transformation so you end up with less total energy available for consumption, not more. They are useful to balance demand and supply, though, in the few locations where they are viable.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby REAL Green » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 19:55:12

I have been talking about these issues for a few years now in my REAL Green adaptation blog. In fact I am living it daily too. It is a way of life with a focus. REAL Green is realistic green and relative green. It is about behavior and things. The important point is it takes behavior to be green. Having an EV and solar pannels is greener but to amplify this you have to live the greener lifestyles. This means localism. Travel has to be greatly reduced. Consumerism is something that needs to be modified. One can do this in a relative way based upon his place and people. If he is rich or poor will dictate how green one can go. The biggest point to REAL Green is the acceptance we cannot continue to grow like we have become accustomed to and expect to be green. So, lots of wealthy green sounding people are really just fake green. Green these days is bought like religion was a few hundred years ago.

REAL Green is a lifestyle focused on reducing one’s planetary footprint but with the acceptance we are trapped in a carbon trap and by a systematic situation of path dependencies that got us into this trap. These path dependencies took hundreds of years and were built upon. I have solar with batteries. I heat with wood. I have maximum insulation. I have grass fed animals. I make hay with low horsepower equipment. I am a permaculturist green prepper but I can't make a living at it. I have investments from years of being fossil fuel drenched that now allow me to dabble in a green prepping way of life. In my point of view greener is better if you care about the planet and its life system. Yet, being realistic I cannot be a TRUE Green. I want to get closer to that but my situation is in a place where green is not very important. My family respect my green behavior but are not into it like me. This means I can only go so far with green and have it fit my life.

As far as the macro picture I think green tech is important to a point. It is better than more of those things that are dirty and not needed for survival like a NASCAR stadium. Solar pannels and wind turbines make us more resilient to a point. Batteries are a great asset but they are also dirty. We probably can't make this world we are in run on them 100%. The physics says its likely not possible and the behavior is not there. If we would lower populations and consumption and embrace intermittency then we could do more. When we want to continue to urbanize with more power, greater speed, and more comfort the whole equation becomes stranded.

The best that can be done is a building of life boats and hospices for a decline process that will be painful but since society is not going to do this then it default to the individually and local. Accept the bigger picture is lost green or brown mainly because the behavior is wrong and the tech inadequate. REAL Green calls for acceptance and from acceptance optimistic pessimism. The pessimism is the acceptance of decline and a world of less and the optimism is that a REAL Green journey is rewarding. It is inevitable a late stage capitalistic society of techno optimists is going to turn green to brown with overemphasis on development over green behavior. Nobody wants to change behavior but everyone will take a new toy and with it the green badge of righteousness that is really just FAKE Green.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby C8 » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 20:53:11

What happens if renewable energy providers go belly up? Is our landscape going to be covered with miles of busted solar panels and stopped windmills? How much does it costs to take all this down safely? The images of this already happening in the movie are pretty concerning. The windmills alone look as long as a battleship. I am glad I don't live by one of these abandoned sites.

Renewable energy seems at the same time to be a brilliant idea and a poorly thought out fiasco.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby JuanP » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 21:05:41

"America's Great Greenwashing"
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/24 ... enwashing/

Article on Michael Moore's "Planet of the Humans" including link to the full movie, too.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby jedrider » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 21:57:25

At least, Planet of the Apes has a happy ending, or I think it does :(
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby ralfy » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 22:20:14

It won't matter what they believe in as limits will eventually lead to reduction in population and per capita consumption.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby C8 » Sun 26 Apr 2020, 22:35:48

jedrider wrote:At least, Planet of the Apes has a happy ending, or I think it does :(


For the apes
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby sparky » Mon 27 Apr 2020, 00:01:30

.
Being conscious of human actions as causes and consequences on our planet is fine ,
what I cannot abide is the fraud of mainstream environment activists
they peddle snake oil solution to middle class suburbia ,
that they can keep their lifestyle if some public money is thrown at the problem
the only result is to feed shonky schemes which very often have marginal disastrous consequences for nature

official Green propaganda is a Santa Claus promise for technological illiterate
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby REAL Green » Mon 27 Apr 2020, 07:15:05

This may be a word salad and appear disjointed but this is the nature of this topic. The pieces are many and varied and cover all aspects from behavior to tech but also status quo to a new system. It is about new and old together in a hybridization. It is worth a glance because it really in the end is individual and local so personal. The status quo is hopelessly trapped and cannot be reformed green or brown. The old ways are not possible as an alternative to the status quo as an escape unless you accept poverty. A combination of all of the above is called for.

The thing about renewables in relation to this suspecting conversation on green washing is they have an important place in the future. They are not going to save us so green washing is wrong. It drives bad policy although a policy better than a Trumpian one of doubling down on fossil fuels. Fossil Fuels and Industrial AG are also necessary. It is like being in a life boat with a heater and a tank of propane.

I am a permaculturist and this whole discussion relates to that in a sense because that is green washed as a solution by many also. Permaculture is the renewable energy of growing things. It cannot do what the greens are saying it can do either. It is just more of the green fantasy but it is still vital and element of change. The world cannot be fed with permaculture. Permaculture has a vital place in the ride down the slope of decline but it will not save us.

It is the combination of good renewable tech and permaculture AG combined with behavior in localism that is the key. This behavior accepts fossil fuels, industrial AG, and globalism as necessary partner in the ride down. It is a matter of utilizing and leveraging the best of the modern that is great knowledge and wonderful things that is combined with past knowledge and things that forms a hybrid bridge to a lower human footprint that is more sustainable. The key behavior it is about triage of things and behavior that is destructive to this decline process. It is about living in two worlds like an astronaut training for life on Mars but the training is on earth. We are living in the status quo training for life when the status quo does not work.

The green tech today is not the real problem it is the behavior both green and brown that is the problem. If you embrace degrowth along with green and brown tech using both in their best applications you will achieve far more. Intermittency must be embraced with the acceptance some areas must be full power 24/7. BTW, considering all the built out brown tech do we really think we can build out a green world discarding all this stuff prematurely and thinking building a completely new world is greener? Think of all those emissions used already and all the new ones to switch out a whole world of things. This is mindboggling. This is especially true when the idea of a 100% green status quo world is according to honest physics not possible.

A behavior that embraces degrowth but in a way that also allows some growth is better. Another problem to consider is the economic washing of degrowth. It is not at all apparent how mush degrowth can be done and still maintain the modern life we have so that has to be graduated. Too much is dangerous. This pandemic shows the dangers of demand shocks. Degrowth must be carefully administered. So the tech, economics, and the human behavior are all key to this mission of a gradient of decline that is favorable to less pain and suffering.

That said a REAL Green like me is under no allusion any of this will be considered. I feel climate change is a done deal. The earth is now demonstrating its own emissions from being forced. It is now responsible for emissions and altered climate regimes so fixing the climate is a fairytale albeit the world should choose to limit emissions to try not to make the situation even worse. The behavior of today is green or brown washing and people who are hard core doomers or skeptical there is a real problem. Many people are paralyzed by the carbon trap and path dependencies. REAL Green goes on to say take this and move it to the local in an effort at green prepping. You can make a difference locally with people and place.

Green prepping is more resilient and sustainable and better for the planet. Use the status quo to leave it some and be better off. This better off does not mean you are going to have a refuge over those who are not doing anything. It does mean you have a better situation of things and behavior. You will have thought out the process and have made some preparations. When the time comes you are not in panic mode but instead utilizing the things you have trained for. There is a way out of this situation with acceptance and preparation. Not the way out of a refuge but the way that is better and more humane then denial and ignorance. It is a journey of enlightenment where the end event is not the only consideration. Fixating on death means one does not live now. Living means doing.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby sparky » Mon 27 Apr 2020, 16:53:18

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I'm totally with you that any valid solution are personal ones
global solutions to solve everything with no consequences are false promises
they are agitated by naive fools for the profit of scoundrels
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby REAL Green » Tue 28 Apr 2020, 07:27:58

“Survival and sustainability: How Canadian ‘preppers’ are encouraging self-sustenance amidst COVID-19”
https://torontoobserver.ca/2020/04/22/s ... -covid-19/

“Prepping will be different for everyone; it is not something you can throw money at and make happen,” said Coffin, owner of Welshtown Haven, a rental property and homestead in Shelburne, N.S. “There is no guideline as to how to prep…“It’s all about self-sufficiency,” says Rose McLean, 53, said in a phone interview. “It’s not always like what you see on television.” McLean, a self-proclaimed “passive prepper,” is referring to the extreme — building complex bomb shelters, complicated “bug out” (escape) plans and possessing loads of ammunition. “Prepping isn’t always about what you have,” said McLean. “It’s about how you use it.” For Coffin, prepping is all about permaculture…Prepping isn’t a cycle. It’s a process. And it’s become a safety net for many. “Our lives revolved around services, whether it be grocery stores, hospitals, heating and hydro,” says Dave MacDonald, of Survival by Training. “We need to be self-sufficient enough to go without them.”…

I reference this becuase there could be a documentary done like "Planet of the Humans" for prepping and permaculture. So many preppers and permaculturist represent the two as more than either can be. I know becuase I am doing both in my REAL Green of green prepping. That said green prepping should be part of the solution to being carbon trapped in the behavior of path dependencies. Permaculture prepping is a process of becoming more resilient and sustainable in a society that is moving in the other direction. The lame pandemic of Covid has proven this out. This virus is not bad medically in relation to past ones but it brought the world to its knees. This happened for systematic reasons of overshoot of economic networks and also a world serviced instead of producing at the grass roots level. It is also the human behavior of not realizing just how exposed the whole global system is to shocks because of an arrangement that is brittle with dispersed risk.

Being a green prepper embraces the process of boosting resilience and seeking to lower one's emission footprint. It will not save you or the planet just as renewables are a farce as a force of 100% green transition. Renewables are greener and can go a long to mitigate societies poor effort at building a life with a future which instead is futureless. The real changes must be behavioral. The social narrative at the top is hopelessly hijacked by growth’ers green and brown. The real solution would be acceptance of a scale down of human civilization in proactive degrowth of consumption and population. This would be done with permaculture and strategies of resilience found in green prepping or as this article presents it "passive prepping". This would have to be done along with the status quo of things with fossil fuels and industrial Agriculture. This acceptance of the status quo is because we are trapped by generations of change built up into an unstable way of life in overshoot with population and consumption.

This social narrative is hopelessly hijacked green and brown but it can be to the advantage of small groups and individuals to embrace permaculture and passive prepping to decline in place with dignity of the meaning that comes with following a planetary trend. It means making tough choices before you are in a panic mode and doing this with time on your side. It may be too late to do many prep activities or it might not be. There may be a reboot to almost normal and if there is, I recommend embracing green prepping in some way to boost your resilience and meaning. We just don't know yet how bad the economic dislocation is but it is never to late to change behavior. Attitudes are most of the changeover to resilience and sustainability. The reason I say this is doing less and having less requires accepting less.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby REAL Green » Tue 28 Apr 2020, 08:42:55

Here is an excellent post in Resilience from Richard Heinberg on the "Planet of Humans":

Review: Planet of the Humans
By Richard Heinberg, originally published by Resilience.org

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020 ... he-humans/
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby C8 » Tue 28 Apr 2020, 11:53:05

I am not going to go into full prepping mode, but I am going to institute a milder version (what I call suburban prepping). The rush on supplies that the lock-down created really jarred me into just how fast things can disappear from stores and not be back for a long time. I have a real taste for the fragility of our "just in time" inventory system and how much it hangs by a thread.I heard that meat is going to be gone for a while now, and sure enough, the shelves are getting empty.

Panic and hoarding are incredibly powerful forces in a market economy.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby REAL Green » Tue 28 Apr 2020, 13:09:44

C8 wrote:I am not going to go into full prepping mode, but I am going to institute a milder version (what I call suburban prepping). The rush on supplies that the lock-down created really jarred me into just how fast things can disappear from stores and not be back for a long time. I have a real taste for the fragility of our "just in time" inventory system and how much it hangs by a thread.I heard that meat is going to be gone for a while now, and sure enough, the shelves are getting empty.

Panic and hoarding are incredibly powerful forces in a market economy.


C8, I am in total agreement with your comment. I am “full” mode as a green prepper but I have the time and money. What is more important is green prepping has become a passion for me. When I talk REAL Green, the meaning is realistic and relative not real as opposed to fake. I am not saying I am green and others are not. That is not the point. Yet, it is about greener and FAKE Green. Many affluent greens are fake and are just into the toy aspect of it. A fancy EV and a power wall in the high dollar McMansion is FAKE Green yet that it is still greener than a Mar a Largo with no green efforts. Green prepping is about a lot of things but the key point is attitude change. This Covid shock has been a welcome wake up call for many and now these many will be more prepared next time. This means society will have more resilience in the summation of individual actions. Let’s hope businesses and government follow too or at least get out of the way of grass roots efforts at sustainability and resilience to future shocks that are guaranteed to be ahead.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby jedrider » Tue 28 Apr 2020, 14:28:57

sparky wrote:.
Being conscious of human actions as causes and consequences on our planet is fine ,
what I cannot abide is the fraud of mainstream environment activists
they peddle snake oil solution to middle class suburbia ,
that they can keep their lifestyle if some public money is thrown at the problem
the only result is to feed shonky schemes which very often have marginal disastrous consequences for nature

official Green propaganda is a Santa Claus promise for technological illiterate


Yeah. We've been locked into the 'Santa Claus economy' ever since the industrial revolution started.

Status Claus economy = Draw Down and Cargoism in the terminology of Catton's Overshoot.
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