Michael Moore, Enemy of the People

It seems that Planet of the Humans, a new film produced by Michael Moore that calls out the "environmentalist" movement for having sold its soul to capitalism, has set the cat among the chirping songbirds of Leftist groupthink. And what better place from which to hear it than Britain's The Guardian, the Izvestia to the New York Times' Pravda, and the chief European enforcer of neo-Marxist  misanthropic orthodoxy.

A new Michael Moore-produced documentary that takes aim at the supposed hypocrisy of the green movement is “dangerous, misleading and destructive” and should be removed from public viewing, according to an assortment of climate scientists and environmental campaigners. The film, Planet of the Humans, was released on the eve of Earth Day last week by its producer, Michael Moore, the baseball cap-wearing documentarian known for Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine. Describing itself as a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows”, the film argues that electric cars and solar energy are unreliable and rely upon fossil fuels to function. It also attacks figures including Al Gore for bolstering corporations that push flawed technologies over real solutions to the climate crisis.

Planet of the Humans has provoked a furious reaction from scientists and campaigners, however, who have called for it be taken down. Films for Action, an online library of videos, temporarily took down the film after describing it as “full of misinformation”, though they later reinstated it, saying they did not want accusations of censorship to give the film “more power and mystique than it deserves”. A free version on YouTube has been viewed more than 3m times.

We always knew that the Left's commitment to dissent and free speech was merely a flag of convenience, under which to continue their real project of shutting down dissent and free speech completely. Going all the way back to Mario Savio at Berkeley in 1964, "free speech" to them was simply the means to the end of destroying the existing postwar societies of the U.S. and Europe and setting their own rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.

What, exactly, has their knickers in such a bunch?

A letter written by Josh Fox, who made the documentary Gasland, and signed by various scientists and activists, has urged the removal of “shockingly misleading and absurd” film for making false claims about renewable energy. Planet of the Humans “trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points” that question the affordability and reliability of solar and wind energy, the letter states, pointing out that these alternatives are now cheaper to run than fossil fuels such as coal.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist and signatory to Fox’s letter, said the film includes “various distortions, half-truths and lies” and that the filmmakers “have done a grave disservice to us and the planet by promoting climate change inactivist tropes and talking points.” The film’s makers did not respond to questions over whether it will be pulled down.

Pulled down? I thought progressives were against censorship in all its forms. Ah, but by now conservatives and cultural defenders have learned that banning, outlawing, and destroying artifacts that offend the Left's delicate, ever-changing sensibilities is their solution to everything.

As Yeats writes in "The Second Coming":

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

See the movie while you still can.