Who would have expected Michael Moore would take on one of the biggest shibboleths of the Left, the so-called Green movement and its massive globo-corporate charade of “renewable energy”:
Examples include a zoo that claims to power itself on ‘renewable’ elephant dung but only produces enough to heat the elephant house.
They film a supposedly solar-powered music festival that quietly plugs into the grid and a similar arrangement at General Motors’ HQ at the launch of a hybrid, plug-in car, where the electricity grid powering the vehicle is ’95 per cent’ fed by coal.
The film also takes issue with solar panels, highlighting their limited shelf-life and that they are made from non-renewable quartz and coal.
In another sequence, joshua trees are chopped down in California so a huge solar facility can be built.
Moore’s documentary is particularly damning of ‘biomass’, the supposedly-renewable energy created by burning organic matter. The film shows huge piles of trees that have been chopped down to feed a power plant, its chimney belching out smoke that appears far from environmentally sound.
Viewers are told biomass is the biggest single source of renewable energy around the world, and — nonsensically given it is supposed to be about energy conservation — has involved wood chips being shipped to Europe from North America, Brazil and Indonesia.
‘Our anxiety over [global] warming has panicked us into embracing anything green or alternative without actually looking too closely at what is involved,’ the film states. With plans to turn animal fat into biomass fuel, the film asks: ‘Is there anything too terrible to qualify as green energy?’
The film suggests that mega-rich businessmen — including Sir Richard Branson and British timber investor Jeremy Grantham — and banks such as Goldman Sachs — are keen to invest in green energy because they want to make a quick buck rather than because they are worried for the planet. According to Moore, Toyota, Citibank and bulldozer giant Caterpillar becoming sponsors of Earth Day provided final confirmation that Big Business has taken over the green movement.
When they had picked their jaws off the floor, the first response from some of the climate scientists and environmental campaigners who have been enthusiasts for renewable energy delighted their opponents — they wanted to ban it.
The truth is always the most powerful rhetoric.