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Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans | A Film by Jeff Gibbs | Full Documentary

Michael Moore
Documentaries
YouTube
7 HN users recommended this documentary7 months2020–2024 score 8.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN uses it as a contrarian critique of renewables and green tech, often recommended with caveats about bias and flawed conclusions.

Planet of the Humans, a full documentary by Jeff Gibbs presented by Michael Moore, arguing that the green movement has been co-opted by corporate and wealthy interests and that techno-fixes are not enough.

“Strongly recommended.” (HN, 2020)

4 strong recommendations · 5 recommendations · 8 citations · Documentaries · partly dated

17 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@largolagrande Sep 2020 Strongly recommends
on HN thread ZEROe: Hydrogen-hybrid aircraft concept
> A lot of cheap solar energy, from the best location. I recommend that you watch the "Planet of the Humans" documentary to understand why there is no cheap solar energy, no so-called "green" energies: [this video] So there will never be any "green" planes, no matter if they use hydrogen or kerosen. Since the minimum required amount of energy to fly from point A to point B with N passengers will always be the same.
Argues green energy is not cheap or truly green.
@largolagrande Sep 2020 Strongly recommends
on HN thread ZEROe: Hydrogen-hybrid aircraft concept
I recommend that you watch the "Planet of The Humans" documentary to understand why there is no cheap or green energy: [this video]
Claims it shows why green energy is not cheap or green.
@hjek Oct 2020 Strongly recommends
on HN thread A toxic, nightmarish lake created by our thirst for tech
> Are there serious research about how much this "green" tech is actually greener or not? The Michael Moore produced documentary Planet of the Humans[0] tries to answer that question. Strongly recommended. [0]: [this video]
Examines whether green tech is actually greener.
@m463 May 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap
also, solar might not be solar. "Utility scale solar" is ambiguous and can mean solar thermal or pv solar. I think solar thermal might be a completely different animal that is not long-lived and not clean. It might be a similar situation to where "renewable power" turns out to me mostly burning garbage or burning trees. This documentary might be a little biased but also have some interesting insights: [this video]
Possibly biased documentary with insights on renewables.
@acidburnNSA Aug 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Solar panels are starting to die, leaving behind toxic trash
The Moore Documentary got lots of flack but does raise some pretty good points, particularly about combustion of biofuel. You can see the whole thing here: [this video] I disagree with the movie's conclusion, which seems identical to yours. We can use tech to keep quality of life high by using responsible and sustainable energy systems like nuclear/wind/solar/hydro. PoTH hardly even mentioned nuclear, which tears their whole "we must depopulate" narrative apart easily.
Raises good points on biofuel combustion despite flawed conclusion.
@olivermarks Oct 2020 Recommends
on HN thread “Assault on Reason” Endangers Democracy (2008)
I think the Gibbs/Moore film 'planet of the humans' is highly pertinent to this thread. [this video] Blood & Gore come across very poorly as cynical green capitalists in this 2020 documentary. [this video] The profit motive Generation investment management/ Blood and Gore [this video]
Portrays green investors as cynical green capitalists.
@olivermarks Nov 2022 Recommends
on HN thread EU climate plan sacrifices carbon storage and biodiversity for bioenergy
Read more
'Planet of the humans' made trenchant points on three issues 1. The global population is exploding in size and the main cause of environmental anxieties [link] 'From 2017 to 2050, it is expected that half of the world’s population growth will be concentrated in just nine countries: India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Ethiopia, the United Republic of Tanzania, the United States of America, Uganda and Indonesia (ordered by their expected contribution to total growth)'. [link] 2. Sierra club and other environmental 'non profits' are condoning the burning of astonishing amounts of wood at the altar of electricity worship for questionable reasons, despite their mission being to save forests 3. The EU appear to have abandoned any sort of strategic foresight, betting the farm on unproven and unreliable wind and solar power claims while shutting off energy to the people they serve in the middle of winter, while simultaneously destroying the ability to travel with punitive restrictions on personally owned vehicles. Absolute madness. The Caliban on the US west coast are the EU's twin organization. ____________________________ [this video] Michael Moore presents Planet of the Humans, a documentary that dares to say what no one else will — that we are losing the battle to stop climate change on planet earth because we are following leaders who have taken us down the wrong road — selling out the green movement to wealthy interests and corporate America . This film i
Makes points on population, biomass burning and green nonprofits.
@idiocrat Jan 2023 Recommends
on HN thread 'A complete failure' Japan's 'fantasy' hydrogen strategy does nothing
Read more
Here is an interesting but sad documentary from 2020. (1h40m). It addresses the concerns about hydrogen. "Michael Moore presents Planet of the Humans, a documentary that dares to say what no one else will — that we are losing the battle to stop climate change on planet earth because we are following leaders who have taken us down the wrong road — selling out the green movement to wealthy interests and corporate America. This film is the wake-up call to the reality we are afraid to face: that in the midst of a human-caused extinction event, the environmental movement’s answer is to push for techno-fixes and band-aids. It's too little, too late. " [this video]
Sad but interesting documentary on techno-fix concerns.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@olivermarks Apr 2020 Cites it
on HN thread Soros fund management backs electric-vehicle charging startup
Having watched Jeff Gibbs/Michael Moore produced 'planet of the humans' last week I'm not enthusiastic about the way EV's are currently mass produced or the ways the energy they rely on is created. [this video]
Cited as shaping skepticism of EV production and energy sources.
@acidburnNSA Aug 2020 Cites it
on HN thread Study: Cheap gas, not renewables, caused nuclear woes (2018)
Read more
Nuclear's environmental drawbacks are well known numerically but not by the general public. By TWh generated, their overall impact on land use and waste generation is astoundingly small because they leverage nuclear forces and E=MC². 2,000,000x less nuclear fuel is required to make a kWh than chemical fuel (fossil, biofuel, or storage in batteries). Fossil and biofuel kills 8,000,000 people/yr from air pollution. Add in climate change and who knows. Meanwhile nuclear power stations have caused Chernobyl and Fukushima, which were devastating locally but have had surprisingly little radiological impact [1,2]. [1] [link] [2] [link] The thesis of the recent Michael Moore film "Planet of the Humans" [3] talks about human die-outs and serious trade-offs. I like your perspective of accepting trade-offs. This is very reasonable. Another recent film, Juice [4] is kind of the optimistic mirror of the Moore doco. [3] Full documentary: [this video] [4] Promo: [link]
Cited for thesis about die-outs and trade-offs.
@vfclists Jul 2021 Cites it
on HN thread Canada is a warning: more and more of the world will soon be too hot for humans
Read more
Typical Guardian fluffy logic. Long on theoretical solutions, short on practicality, the kind of logic privileged Westerners are so fond of. The only way to deal with exercise heat is to redesign buildings, living and work environments to cope with the heat. Climate alarmists always pretend that human beings haven't seen such events and learned to adapt to them. They have, the important thing is learn from the past, not blame everything on CO2 warming. The only way to cope with a warming climate is to expend lots more energy in the near term handle the changes in the future, and if you are going to avoid CO2, nuclear is the way forward or something better comes up, The Green Energy plan is mostly bogus, and that is easy to tell from the kind of companies which have jumped on the bandwagon seeing as leopards don't change their spots. [this video]
@Ygg2 Dec 2022 Cites it
on HN thread Europe Makes Shipping Vessels Pay for Carbon Emissions
Not sure why you got downvoted. Not emitting carbon is always going to be more effective than emitting then capturing carbon. But most of green tech is a load of green washing ( [this video] warning long video). By most I mean non-nuclear, non hydro-electric. Fact is that battery tech isn't up to task of high capacity highly reusable energy storage.
Cited as showing most green tech is greenwashing.
@KevinMS Jan 2024 Cites it
on HN thread A new kind of climate denial has taken over on YouTube
> It largely centers around deceptive messages that “climate solutions won’t work,” that the science backing those solutions is unreliable Like the latest Michael Moore documentary? The well known shill of Big Oil? Is that the kind of thing we should start censoring? [this video]

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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