Left-wing activists have turned on documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, furious that the anti-renewables documentary Planet of the Humans which he executive produced has betrayed their cause and giving an easy win to their enemy President Donald Trump.
One of the film’s distributors — Films For Action — has withdrawn its support and demanded a retraction and apology from Moore, in response to an open letter from the left-wing documentary maker Josh Fox.
1) I just received notice that the distributor of Michael Moore's #PlanetoftheHumans is taking the film down due to misinformation in the film.
Thank you to @FilmsForAction for responding to our demand for a retraction and an apology from @mmflint.
See below. And thank you to… pic.twitter.com/3ZzkLhTVyC— Josh Fox EndFossilFuels (@joshfoxfilm) April 24, 2020
Fox, author of the anti-fracking polemic Gasland, writes:
“It is very difficult to write this letter, because Michael Moore has always been a hero of mine. I’m a first-person documentary maker, I have watched his movies since I was a kid and they have inspired and delighted me. However, I am compelled to write this letter because his latest film PLANET OF THE HUMANS, which he executive produced and is promoting for Earth Week, is such a blatant affront to science, renewable energy, environmental activism and truth itself.”
He claims:
“The film trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points that are specious and meant to disparage the efficiency, durability and affordability of renewable energy.”
And:
“The film is dangerous, misleading and destructive to decades of progress on environmental policy, science and engineering.”
Among the signatories of Fox’s letter is Michael Mann, author of the discredited “Hockey Stick” chart formerly quoted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as evidence of catastrophic man-made climate change.
Other leftists have been similarly incensed by this betrayal of the cause by one of their own:
please don't fuel the fires of Breitbart by burning the green house down instead of fixing it.
— jerusha korim (@jerushko) April 24, 2020
Great @MMFlint…so basically you've joined Team Trump?
— The Ambivalent Warrior ™ (@AmAmbivalent) April 23, 2020
Despite the withdrawal of support from one of its left-wing distributors, the documentary can easily be seen on YouTube where it has already racked up nearly 1.5 million views.
The criticisms directed at the movie by Josh Fox may be open to charges of hypocrisy — especially his claims that it is “specious” and “misleading.” Very similar criticisms have been made about Fox’s anti-fracking documentary Gasland.
The doc film that should be canceled isn't "Planet of the Humans," it's "Gasland"
The person who should apologize is you, @joshfoxfilm
You *deliberately* mislead millions of people into believing fracking for natural gas caused that sensational firehttps://t.co/0S7MSsspXx
— Mike Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) April 24, 2020
As environmental activist Mike Shellenberger points out in a Twitter thread, Gasland misled its audience by depicting a flammable faucet — even though this had nothing to do with fracking.
This deception was first exposed by documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer:
An Irish documentary filmmaker named Phelim McAleer called out @joshfoxfilm for his mischaracterization of fracking at a 2011 Gasland screening.https://t.co/z9WfE3Yo4K
— Mike Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) April 24, 2020
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