Climate experts call for 'dangerous' Michael Moore film to be taken down
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Engage with them, show them the error of their thinking, but if you drive it underground you just trap those people in a bubble filled with like minded people and the chance they change their mind approaches zero.
Plus there is always the chance you're the one who's wrong - even if you're on the side with the widely accepted viewpoint.
All innovation at least begins with a dissenting voice.
Sadly, it's beneficial to media companies to give provably false statements airtime because they are controverial, which drives views and clicks which drives revenue.
But for society is it beneficial to let false statements have a platform?
You do realize scientists need salary for food, clothing, housing, health care, etc.?
As with anything, follow the money. The grant systems that power our “scientific research” these days are anything but unbiased.
You fail to consider that humans implement rules (e.g., your movie is illegal because it's not true) and humans are fundamentally corrupt, selfish creatures.
Provably false statements do not require perfect arbtration of truth.
For example, the president says something on TV, and a talking head straight-face states "that never happened". This is the current level of discourse in the USA.
What you're actually doing when you say this is giving a select group of people power to decide what is and is not false. And that's pure, soft political power.
That's the danger in censorship, it starts with the best of intentions, to protect people from being misled by obviously wrong facts, but inevitably the opinions of the censors are confused with fact.
This tends not to work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
It takes substantially more time to debunk bullshit than it does to spew it, and you'll generally find they just move onto the next piece of bullshit with no "gee, I was wrong, I should evaluate that..." thinking.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotation...
The problem is that not enough people do this, but if you are unconstrained by the truth, you can say things that are much more superficially interesting. This drives engagement, so you will be signal-boosted by social media platforms. All of the comments of people debunking you only add to the engagement, so these articles are the bread and butter of the social media profit machine.
Bingo. Michael Moore has been on my personal _index expurgatorius_ for decades.
Much of what this film says is outdated enough to constitute deliberate mendacity, and deliberate mendacity is Moore's stock and trade.
Of course, Moore's latest documendacity doesn't mention nuclear as a carbon-free energy source.
I've long said that the moment an energy source -- ANY energy source -- threatens to be able to produce enough reliable 24x7 power to keep technological civilization from collapsing, All The Usual Suspects will find some reason to oppose it. The goal is the collapse of technological civilization and the depopulation of the planet. (These types assume that they will not be personally snapped because they are Oh So Special.)
I hadn't thought wind and solar were likely to meet the challenge of producing sufficient 24x7 energy to power our technological civilization, but Moore & co. seem to think there's a risk that it might.
Iraq soldiers throwing babies in Kuwait on to the floor to die. Iraq's WMD. Syria's usage of chemical weapons and the 'red line.' All little pieces of propaganda to support the wars.
Probably you won't change their mind, but at least by disagreeing in a rational manner you may shake their faith a little and let them know not everyone thinks like they do.
Censorship is not the answer.
Some people argue about things to win an argument, not uncover the truth, engaging with them as if they are doing the former when they're really doing the latter will get nowhere.
Moore can publish (obvious!) bullshit for years and never really get called on it by "experts" or popular media. Now, he publishes something that goes against the dogma of a highly cathedralized and politicized field with such low predictive power that it hardly qualifies as a science at all, and there's a huge (and very successful) censorship effort.
I wonder, is the divergence between the predictive power of the field and the strength of its dogma enforcement an anomaly, or is it to be expected that fields with low predictive power will more aggressively defend their orthodoxy?
He gets called on it constantly. His reputation is so bad that it would never occur to me to bother watching this film.
'goes against the dogma'
Or, contains objective falsehoods and libels.
> Or, contains objective falsehoods and libels.
All of his movies have this, and they still don't provoke this kind of reaction.
FWIW I think one needs to differentiate between Climate Science and the narrative of the Climate Movement. The former is more than 100 years old, the latter kind of under-developed and easy to attack. It's surprising though that Moore does it...
It just feels like it is a matter of time until we have something as insane as the French Revolution in the US.
https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/skepticism-is-health...
As for deplatforming, come on. There is more than one college campus in the world. If it's deplatforming to kick people out of colleges it's definitely deplatforming to bully film distributors into dropping films.
So yes, I would definitely watch "rebuttle" documentaries! Are there any others out there?
If what Moore presents is taken out of context, which is probably what is happening here, it doesn't matter what he presents.
What I hate the most about this argument is that it's often presented as a universal fact, and while it may be true in some areas in the world, it's definitely not true everywhere. A lot of Europe has nuclear electricity, for example, and here in Canada we're mostly on hydro power.
The overall numbers start to look very different when you assume hydro power instead of coal, for example, and I bet the film doesn't mention that (haven't seen it, though).
EDIT: I found a source describing my province's electricity mix: https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/nrgsstmprfls/qc-en...
Turns out all fossil fuels combined contribute less than 1% of out electric capacity. A significant part of that 1% is in remote communities such as the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, which uses a diesel plant. This means that the percentage is even smaller in the "general" mix outside of these communities.
You're right that there's a real impact on ecosystems; flooding large areas and such. However, I'd describe it more as a disruption than a destruction; 30 years later the ecosystems around it have adapted and the reservoir serves the ecological function of a large lake. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's better than burning coal.
I can't vouch for this but I read stuff like this
https://news.wsu.edu/2016/09/28/reservoirs-play-substantial-...
td;dr: Bacteria in reservoirs decompose organic material trapped behind the dam releasing CO2 and methane.
Electric cars would, I suspect, only be more efficient in terms of CO2 if the production of their electricity did not produce any CO2, i.e. the electricity came from hydro, nuclear, wind or geothermal.
Let’s just look at fluids: Oil Cooling Brake Transmission Differential Power steering (although more and more ICE cars are coming with electric, so this is waning).
Many of those must be changed on a routine basis. Changed. That means old has to be drained and disposed of and new fluids have to be made to be used for replacement.
Look at all the parts in ICE vehicles that need replacement/maintenance - spark plugs, air filters, PCV Valves, accessory and timing belts - those are pretty common, but there are just more moving parts so more to potentially break beyond that stuff.
By comparison, electric cars are extremely simple. Brake fluid and windshield washer fluid are generally all they have. There are far fewer moving parts. If there is a transmission, they are dramatically simpler/less complex. Yes the battery packs are liquid cooled but it’s a sealed, non-serviceable system. The lead acid batteries in my ICE cars are sealed too.
This is one of the biggest reasons electric cars aren’t popular with dealers. Car dealers survive on maintenance, not new car sales. Fleecing people on used cars (buying or selling - most people suck at dealing with used vehicles) can be a significant source of revenue, but nothing beats steady service revenue. Hell just try to get a modern car that doesn’t flog you to see your dealer for routine service - whether it’s really needed or not.
Electric cars have dramatically fewer service requirements and this has a substantially positive environmental impact - has to. If you don’t have to create a bunch of stuff on a routine basis x millions of vehicles then there isn’t much of an environmental impact, eh?
That said, I still think current battery tech isn’t practical enough to totally supplant ICE vehicles. Electric cars make great commuter vehicles - except with the pandemic most people are teleworking :) Maybe the new Samsung solid state batteries will finally tilt things where electrics are a no-brainer.
I think this would be preferable to the clumsy "whack-a-mole" system we currently use to silence unacceptable ideas.
"Cancer can be cured by drinking methylmercury."
"That's dangerous and you should stop saying it."
"Looks like I hit the mark!"
There are likely many films that make ludicrous claims about climate change but even absurd ones rarely get called out as dangerous enough to warrant being banned. When films/books/etc get this strong of a reaction there is usually something in there that is worth understanding why it hit such a nerve.
...or it could just be good marketing.
And it's a bad point.
People who claim to be "challenging sacred cows" are often just making provocative, misleading, or downright false claims. This has been Moore's shtick for decades now, in fact.
A strong reaction is not always proof of "sacred cows". Sometimes it's just warranted.
What do you mean when you say sacred cows?
There are a lot of reasons an idea might make you mad, some of them very warranted. If you don't have an emotional reaction about at least a few topics, you probably aren't thinking seriously about the practical consequences of getting those topics wrong.
To be clear, society-wide censorship is rarely if ever a good idea. But I am similarly unsympathetic to the idea that being able to make someone mad means that your arguments have more merit. Being able to troll people and rile them up is a different skill than arguing. It doesn't mean Moore has hidden insight, it means he knows what buttons to push.
I wager that I could make some pretty stupid programming claims on HN that would get downvoted to oblivion, and the fact that I knew which buttons to push to get a reaction out of commenters here wouldn't have anything to do with whether or not they were true. I mean, I know exactly what buttons I would press to make someone like tptacek mad at me about encryption, but those buttons don't really have any correlation to the areas where I agree or disagree with tptacek's general approach to security.
In other words, there are a lot of reasons someone can be angry about a public claim -- they can be angry that it's common and they need to respond to it over and over again, they can be angry that the arguments are being accepted by a large portion of the population, they can be angry because the arguments are based on a faulty or fundamentally wrong understanding of how science/research works, they can be angry because they think the arguments are being made in bad faith.
> but even absurd ones rarely get called out as dangerous enough to warrant being banned
It's not the content, it's the source. It's that Moore has a large public following and people know about him. Lots of people deny climate change, but climate scientists get more worked up about Trump doing it than fringe researchers, even though on average the fringe researchers are probably making more nuanced, more insightful, better arguments against climate science than Trump is.
People do need to be careful about falling into ideology traps, but if you want to claim that someone has a mental area where they can't even consider adversarial evidence or question their own beliefs, I feel like I need to see more evidence of that than, "this highly public person made people mad when they said something stupid to millions of viewers."
Because that's just not a hard thing to do. If the head of the FDA walked out on a stage tomorrow and announced that actually we got it wrong, and drinking bleach is a really good cure for COVID-19, lots of scientists would be mad about that, and I don't think that would inherently mean that bleach is one of their "sacred cows".
>Summary: The new movie Executive Produced and promoted by Michael Moore, Directed by Jeff Gibbs and distributed by Films for Action, PLANET OF THE HUMANS is unscientific, flies in the face of decades of renewable energy science, engineering and research and is counter productive in the age of urgent need for Climate Action. Because the film is based in misinformation and not in truth, we request that the film be retracted by its creators and distributors and an apology rendered for its misleading content.
Describing itself as a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows”
temporarily took down the film after describing it as “full of misinformation”
“trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points” that question the affordability and reliability of solar and wind energy.
the film includes “various distortions, half-truths and lies”
Then all you have to do is follow the link in the article to the letter that contains those rebuttals.
> Ultimately, we decided to put it back up because we believe media literacy, critique and debate is the best solution to the misinformation in the film. https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/michael-moore-presents-...
I can't tell if that's the climate experts they refer to but these film advocates breath of freshair response is equal to or more newsworthy than the original article. I'm really digging their tone and open invitation.
i've seen a couple michael moore docs before, and while i often sympathize with his position on a given topic, i'm rarely impressed by his persuasive documentary powers.
The video starts off explaining that he is an environmentalist. Certainly makes the video provocative.
The actual video seems to suggest what the right-wing has been saying for 20 years. VERY interesting to see Michael Moore agreeing with the right-wing folks.
Makes you wonder if perhaps that he is right here.
3 points that are absolutely true. 1) that most green power is backed up by fossil fuels. 2) that solar and wind power hardware needs to be replaced on a regular cycle and that every cycle deals with adding pollution to the environment. and 3) that the real problem is the size of the human population. There are too many people overpowering the planet's available resources.
They are uncomfortable issues but they need to be addressed rather than swept under the floor because we don't like them. If we don't address them they will never be fixed.
1)Duh. Green power (except nuclear) cant just scale whenever it is needed, sun is there during the day only, wind is there when wind is there, etc. Why is this even an issue? Over time green power and power storage technologies will get cheaper and flexible, allowing us to use green power as higher and higher percentages of our power needs.
2) Who ever said that green power hardware had some magical resistance to wear and obsolescence? Obsolescence is great because it means newer hardware works better and can have lower environmental impacts.
3) Something that’s been a mainstream topic for over 50 years, so what’s the point? what’s their and your solution? We know that increasing living standards and empowering women leads to lower birth rates, the US and Japan are supposedly already below replacement level birth rates. What else do you propose?
As for the third point, I don't think the film comes right out and says there are too many people, though it is implied. Specifically the film claims that in the last 200 years the population as well as the consumption rate per person has increased tenfold, for a total increased impact of 100 times.
It’s ridiculous to complain that technologies that significantly reduce our environmental impact aren’t zero impact. It’s throwing babies out with the bath water levels of cluelessness.
I am no climate change sceptic. It's easy to see that our way of life is far beyond sustainable and has developed in ways which are now harmful to us individually and as a species. It's easy to see and I will support any change which is driven by sustainability first.
But I'm now beginning to see why people are against the "green" movement. They are not starting with sustainability. They are simply trying to profit from giving people the same conveniences but with a "green" badge slapped on it. If it was about sustainability it would be easy to debunk a film like this, but instead they just want to silence it.
Moore makes an excellent point: creating solar panels and wind farms requires fossil fuels. Doing so in such a way as to accommodate perpetual growth is unsustainable.
We need to prune the human species to a sustainable level and keep it there.
We need forced sterilization, now. We need to limit waste and useless economic activity, now. Or else we will become extinct.
COVID-19 is clear and unequivocal evidence that population density has reached unsustainable levels. We are looking at The Great Filter.
We can have innovation, technical progress, and a good life. But we can only do that on a smaller scale.
Because I don't see a chance of that one being adopted.
Forced sterilization is not the only answer. Fifty years ago, Paul Ehrlich explained the problem in considerable detail, and he has offered numerous solutions. Today, most people have never heard of him. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich )
Perhaps Covid-19.is too tame. Just wait. If we are unwilling to live in harmony with nature, the problem will soon be resolved - one way or another. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWMyWr9_CVo )
Starting with you and yours?