{"id":52819,"date":"2020-04-28T07:22:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T12:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=52819"},"modified":"2020-04-28T07:22:55","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T12:22:55","slug":"review-planet-of-the-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=52819","title":{"rendered":"Review: Planet of the Humans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2020-04-27\/review-planet-of-the-humans\/\">Review: Planet of the Humans<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/screen-shot-2019-08-06-at-8-41-43-pm_orig.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few days ago, Emily Atkin posted a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/heated.world\/p\/the-wheel-of-first-time-climate-dudes?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo4NjAwOTEsInBvc3RfaWQiOjM5OTM5MCwiXyI6Ii9hNWdIIiwiaWF0IjoxNTg3NjYxOTA4LCJleHAiOjE1ODc2NjU1MDgsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yNDczIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.UDBoLGgigCsDHLX_GDOqjYAy6SrZXQ0Q944XYP9nqX4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reaction<\/a>&nbsp;to Michael Moore\u2019s latest film,&nbsp;<em>Planet of the Humans<\/em>&nbsp;(directed and narrated by Jeff Gibbs), in which she began by admitting that she hadn\u2019t seen the film yet. When writers take that approach, you know there\u2019s already blood in the water. (She has since watched the film and written an actual&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/heated.world\/p\/really-michael-moore\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">review<\/a>. Full disclosure: I\u2019m in the film, included as one of the \u201cgood guys.\u201d But I don\u2019t intend to let that fact distort my comments in this review.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The film is controversial because it makes two big claims: first, that renewable energy is a sham; second, that big environmental organizations\u2014by promoting solar and wind power\u2014have sold their souls to billionaire investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I feel fairly confident commenting on the first of these claims, regarding renewable energy, having spent a year working with David Fridley of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/ourrenewablefuture.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">assess<\/a>&nbsp;the prospects for a complete transition to solar and wind power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We found that the transition to renewables is going far too slowly to make much of a difference during the crucial next couple of decades, and would be gobsmackingly expensive if we were to try replacing all fossil fuel use with solar and wind. We also found, as the film underscores again and again, that the intermittency of sunshine and wind is a real problem\u2014one that can only be solved with\u00a0<em>energy storage<\/em>\u00a0(batteries, pumped hydro, or compressed air, all of which are costly in money and energy terms); or with\u00a0<em>source redundancy<\/em>\u00a0(building way more generation capacity than you\u2019re likely to need at any one time, and connecting far-flung generators on a super-grid); or\u00a0<em>demand management<\/em>\u00a0(which entails adapting our behavior to using energy only when it\u2019s available). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Review: Planet of the Humans A few days ago, Emily Atkin posted a&nbsp;reaction&nbsp;to Michael Moore\u2019s latest film,&nbsp;Planet of the Humans&nbsp;(directed and narrated by Jeff Gibbs), in which she began by admitting that she hadn\u2019t seen the film yet. When writers take that approach, you know there\u2019s already blood in the water. (She has since watched [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12479,29548,674,6665,1081],"class_list":["post-52819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-michael-moore","tag-plant-of-the-humans","tag-renewable-energy","tag-resilience-org","tag-richard-heinberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52820,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52819\/revisions\/52820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}