A Note on the Controversy About "Planet of the Humans"

By Kamran Nayeri, Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism, May 3, 2020

There has been much controversy surrounding “Planet of the Humans” (director Jeff Gibbs, producer Michael Moore, 2020) within the climate justice movement in the United States (For a sample, see, the Wikipedia entry for the film).  The reason is obvious.  The documentary takes a critical look at the leadership of this movement, in particular 350.org and its founder Bill McKibben, who thanks to the mass media has become the poster child of the climate justice movement, and some of the policies and practices they have supported.  In other words, Moore and Gibbs whose film is now seen by millions of viewers have brought to light an inconvenient truth: The climate justice movement which has a narrow technological view of the crisis hence its solution—replacing dirty fuels with “clean, renewable energy”—has become enslaved to a fictional vision of Green Capitalism that would never rid us of a catastrophic climate change.  That is the central message of the documentary which the critics do not like and would not discuss.

Instead, Moore and Gibbs have become subject of attacks by some in the climate justice movement.  Josh Fox, another liberal filmmaker, who attacks Moore and Gibbs as “the new flack for oil and gas” industry offers a typical response. He argues that Moore and Gibbs instead should have celebrated the “stunning” “achievements” of the climate justice movement. 

“The codification and structuring of the Green New Deal, the Fossil Free movement championed by Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein, which has led to universities, pension funds, and foundations to commit to divesting trillions of dollars from fossil fuels, huge advances in renewable energy efficiency, the proliferation of 100 percent renewable energy plans put forward by Stanford University Professor Mark Jacobson and others, a burgeoning youth movement inspired by Fridays for Future and Greta Thunberg; the remarkable successes of the anti-fracking movement—which finally reached the mainstream, espoused by progressives like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but also by moderates like Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg. And the incredible civil disobedience uprising at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline. What a decade for the environmental movement! Those achievements deserve celebration on film.” (Fox, The Nation, April 30, 2020)

Somehow, Fox who suggests the documentary falls short of good scientific evidence finds it inconvenient to ask himself why despite such “stunning achievements” carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere continues to rise.  On May 1, 2020, CO2 concentration was 418.03 ppm compared to 414.88 ppm on May 1, 2019 (CO2 Daily, accessed May 2, 2020). 

I will return to Fox’s “stunning achievements” in a moment. But let’s note the important criticism the film makes of the climate justice movement and its leadership.    

Natural limits to growth

The documentary is typical of Moore movies.  It is not a film about science of climate change or any scientific assessment of “renewable” energy although it does allude to them (some of these issues are in dispute even among experts, see, for example, the important topic of “energy returned on energy invested” EROEI discussion in Wikipedia) .  

A central and critical message of the film is natural limits to growth: on a finite planet infinite economic growth including of human population and consumption is impossible.  In other words, even if “clean, renewable” energy can be had, its manufacturing and use may still exceed the natural limits of the planet if we do not substantially reduce the drive for ever-more energy consumption. The film does not discuss this but it is common knowledge that the bulk of GHGs emissions are by the U.S., China, and European Union (Chinese emissions are in part due to demand for manufactured goods from the U.S. and E.U.). At the same time 850 million people in the Global South lack access to energy (International Energy Association, World Outlook, 2019).

Of course, over-consumption in Global North and by some in Global South is also pressing against other natural limits to growth (example: oceans are running out of fish and most fish in the market these days are farmed fish which require energy to produce). This feeds into factors that have caused the Sixth Extinction which is considered an existential crisis as it will lead to the collapse of the web of life perhaps by the end of this century (Wilson, 2016; see, also, Nayeri, 2017)

 A related important point the film makes is that “clean, renewable energy” is not entirely renewable or clean.  Construction of solar panel, wind turbines and related materials and infrastructure use fossil fuels and contribute to energy consumption and they have to be replaced on certain short intervals of time.  As someone who has installed solar panels for my home I know that I am still dependent on Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) for my power at night and when it did cut off power to northern California homes last fall because of wildfire, I too had not electricity. Thus, I am still dependent on fossil fuels and nuclear energy PG&E uses.  

Capitalism and the profit motive

Moore and Gibbs also go further than the climate justice movement and its leaderships in that in the documentary they holds “capitalism” responsible for the crisis and once refer to the “profit motive” as the source of quest for ever-more growth on a finite planet.  It was practically a conversation stopper in 350.org when I was briefly part of it and in much of the climate justice movement to speak of “capitalism,” not fossil fuels only, as the source of the crisis.  To put it differently, 350.org and all other prominent climate justice movement groups as well as all environmentalist groups refuse to consider that Our Way of Life, “capitalism,” has anything to do with the climate crisis or the broader ecological crisis. A very small current in the climate justice movement, including this author, has argued that the crisis is systemic and to overcome it we must work towards transcending capitalism.  

Green Capitalism 

Using these lenses, the documentary criticizes the leadership of the climate justice movement, especially 350.org and it founder Bill McKibben, as pursuing what is known as Green Capitalism, that is, some fictitious environmentally friendly capitalism.   The point Moore and Gibbs make is painfully clear: you cannot have capitalism and the pursuit of profit and infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources.  Sooner or later, crises of all kinds will erupt.  The runaway climate change is the one most well-known.  But the Sixth Extinction is equally as important. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is yet another facet of the same crisis. Even if the whole world transitions to "renewable energy" but capitalist growth continues, humanity may still go extinct. 

Which way forward for the climate justice movement?

While supporting every mass mobilization of the movement, I have been an outspoken critic of the reformist Green Capitalism politics of its leadership as the list of essays below written over a number of years show.

My criticism of the movement’s leadership has never focused on their relationship with the various capitalist groups or their sources of funding. But is it not troubling that major environmentalist groups like Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council have had a cozy relationship with the major capitalist groups with an interest in environmentalist policy? Isn’t it a conflict of interest? Isn’t it troubling to Mr. Fox and others who are attacking Moore and Gibbs as oil and gas flake that Bill McKibben when asked on camera to disclose the funding sources of 350.org draws a blank? 

Still, my criticism of McKibben is based on his misunderstanding of why we have climate crisis and who is responsible for it and how we can resolve the crisis.  

In an April 2016 interview with an Australian website, McKibben candidly recounts the evolution of his own strategic thinking: “I spent a lot of years getting it wrong…I thought we were engaged in an argument” with the fossil fuel industry. “We waited far too long to realise what a fight it was, and that there was an adversary on the other side.” 

At that time McKibben appeared to argue that politicians are “pawns” in the hands of the fossil fuel industry and he decided to go after the “real bosses” (the fossil fuel industry).  But isn't he still "getting it wrong?" Isn't the problem capitalism and not just oili and gas industries that serve industrial capitalism? 

Not only McKibben wasted “a lot of years” unable to form a critical conception of the fossil fuel industry and the dynamics of the capitalist economy, he also has never ever took the trouble to find out. By narrowly defining the problem that the climate justice movement faces, he continued to come up with a deficient strategy.  

As he was granting that interview in Australia, 350.org  was preparing for its failed “Break Free from Fossil Fuels” campaign which used a series of civil disobedience actions targeting the “worse polluters” by a small group of activists. At the same time, McKibben was favoring Senator Sanders campaign in the 2016 elections to reform the Democratic Party, that is a capitalist electoral strategy. When Sanders lost in part due to the machinations of the Democratic Party bosses, McKibben and 350.org threw their support behind the establishment's Hillary Clinton’s bid for presidency even though she openly embraced natural gas and fracking (Fox and current critics of Moore and Gibbs seem to have forgotten that episode). Read McKibben's own account of this experience in his New Republic essay. The electoralist illusion is not unique to 350.org but is widely shared in the climate justice movement, the ecology movement, and social justice movement.  Why that is can only be explained by a lack of critical thinking. Just consider the balance sheet of other once mighty movements such as the labor movement, the movement to defend abortion right, and the African American movement who relied on a similar electoral policy and the Democratic Party who have been reduced to small mariginalized groups.  

In summary, McKibben and 350.org and all other climate justice groups such as The Climate Mobilization have no other strategy.  Thus, they help initiate, fund, or promote various other groups such as the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats to elect “climate friendly” (typically) Democratic Party politicians. After Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to Congress in 2018 with help from Justice Democrats and proposed a non-binding Green New Deal Resolution it caused widespread jubilation in the climate justice movement and some even envisioned a a rapid transition to a fossil fuel free economy through a massive U.S. government devised and funded plan.  

Of course, nothing of the kind ever happened. The non-binding GND Resolution is largely forgotten and the most significant action Ocasio-Cortez has been to endorse Sanders’ bid for nomination by the Democratic Party in this primary season.  When Sanders's bid became highly unlikely to succeed, he ended his campaign and endorsed Biden’s nomination. It was a Déjà vu of the 2016 experience. It is an understatement that the climate justice movement has become disoriented.  There is little doubt that 350.org and other prominent climate justice and ecology group will support the Biden bid for presidency as a matter of the lesser evil politics.  Biden does not seem to have any campaign program of his own but promises a return to the "Golden Age" of Obama administration policies. We know how effective the Obama presidency was in addressing the existential climate change crisis. 

The interested reader can find my detailed critique of the Green New Deal and its proponents (Nayeri, March 2019; Nayeri, January 2019).  But let me point out one aspect of both the Sanders’ program and the GND of Ocasio-Cortez that is relevant to the movie's central message: They are both Keynesian vision of some Green Capitalist future with the promise of prosperity to the U.S. working people when in fact what is unfolding is the systemic existential crisis of capitalism.  In his 2016 campaign, Sanders promised a 5% a year GDP growth, a really fast rate of economic growth for a mature capitalist economy.  If Sanders were elected president in 2020 and his program adopted and implemented it would certainly have cause a similarly fast rate of economic growth. Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed GND is also a Green Keynesian program that would cause rapid economic growth. 

Presumably, both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez plans would have redistributed income from the super rich to the working people and would have tied to enact programs that would have benefited them in the short run.  But their proposals would also contribute to the ecological crisis by pressing against the limits to growth while they would also increase the gap between the rich United States and the global poor who currently constitute almost half the world population— more than 3 billion people — who live on less than $2.50 a day.  Surely, the prosperity Green Capitalist politicians like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders promise the American working people could not ever be extended to the poor regions of the world as it will certainly amount to suicide for humanity as catastrophic climate change and the collapse of the web of life will result.

Thus, Moore and Gibbs are correct to point to natural limits to growth and to the problem of unceasing capitalist economic growth fueled by ceaseless pursuit of profits as the cause for climate crisis.  To fault them for pointing out the fact that United States cannot solve the climate crisis simply by transitioning to “clean renewable” energy sources while continuing to produce and consume ever more energy and all other stuff of the American ways of life is at best ignorant. 

A culture of being, not a culture of having  

Humanity’s salvation lays only in whether billions of us can undertake a course to transcend the anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization in the direction of an Ecocentric Socialist future where a culture of being will replace the present culture of having, when humanity will finally undo all power relations on which the current civilization rests by disempowering those who hold power.  For the past five thousand years, all civilizations have been class societies in which the ruling classes have dominated and exploited the working masses to extract wealth from nature.  This has been the root cause of ecological and social crises that have resulted in the collapse of many civilizations.  It would be foolish to disregard the fact that the anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization is an exception. We must end the paradigm of wealth generation, radically reduce the human population over a number of generations democratically through empowerment of women, and radically reduce the size of our economies by refocusing on local economies geared to production of basic necessities of a life consistent with human development in harmony among ourselves and with the rest of nature.

To be sure, Planet of the Humans has shortcomings. But the central message it communicates deserve the full attention of and discussion by the climate and ecological movements.  Likewise, I would appreciate any critical discussion of this commentary. 

A list of my earlier writings on climate change follows:

“Challenges Posed by the ‘Green New Deal’” January 16, 2019.

“Opportunities and Challenges Posed by the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) Protests and the Sunrise Movement” January 3, 2019.

“Can Divestment from Fossil Fuels Stop the Climate Crisis and Save the World?”  March 12, 2018.

“Who Can Stop the Climate Crisis?” June 27, 2017.

“To Be or Not to Be: Ecocentric Ecological Socialism as the Solution to the World Social and Planetary Crisis” May 26, 2017.

“Reformism or Radicalism: Which Strategy for the Climate Justice Movement?" October 6, 2017.

“Making Progress: A Critical Assessment of Climate Action Plans by Bill McKibben and The Climate Mobilization” September 3, 2016.

“Strategy and Tactics for the Climate Justice Movement: A Critique of 350.org “Break Free from Fossil Fuels” Campaign”March 31, 2016.

“After Paris: To Succeed the Climate Justice Movement Must Lead,” January 4, 2016.

“Emissions Tax, The Climate Movement, and Radical Social Change,” July 3, 2015.

“The Climate Movement Should Demand: "Tax Greenhouse Gases Emissions With Subsidies for Low-Income People” June 26, 2015.

“Why the San Francisco Bay Area 350.org's Call for "Getting Out the Vote" for Democrats Is a Grave Mistake” October 26, 2014.

‘People’s Climate March Was a Huge Success; What to Do Next? October 1, 2014.

“Join the March for Climate Justice on September 21” August 12, 2014

References

Nayeri, Kamran. “How to Stop the Sixth Extinction: A Critical Assessment of E. O. Wilson’s Half-Earth.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. May 14, 2017.

————————. “Challenges Posed by the ‘Green New Deal’.”  Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. January 16, 2019. 

————————. “A Future for American Capitalism or The Future of Life on Earth?: An Ecosocialist Critique of the ‘Green New Deal’.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. March 25, 2019.

Wilson, E. O. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, 2016.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to David McDonald for his suggestions on a draft of this commentarry.