By Chris Lang The documentary Planet of the Humans continues to raise controversy. This week, YouTube took down the documentary in response to a copyright infringement claim by Toby Smith, a British photographer. The offending four-second clip comes in a sequence titled “How Solar Panels & Wind Turbines Are Made” and shows a rare earth…
Category: USA
Planet of the Humans (part 1): Blood and Gore
By Chris Lang The new documentary Planet of the Humans is, like anything Michael Moore gets involved with, deliberately controversial. This one attacks renewable energy, some parts of the green movement, and decides that over-population is the problem. Moore released the film on his YouTube channel on the 50th Earth Day. In a week it’s…
“You can’t value what you can’t measure.” Opening up the black box of carbon accounting
By Chris Lang “Offsets are an imaginary commodity created by deducting what you hope happens from what you guess would have happened.” That’s Dan Welch writing in the magazine Ethical Consumer in 2007.
Coronavirus notes #3: The US bailout of its airline companies is “insane”
By Chris Lang At the end of March 2020, Donald Trump signed the US government’s US$2.2 trillion bailout into law, after it was unanimously passed in the Senate. Otherwise known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economy Security Act (“CARES Act”) the bailout includes generous grants and loans to the aviation industry.
Coronavirus notes #2: Masks for all. And basic income for all
By Chris Lang Do not go out and try to buy a face mask after reading this. Do stay at home and make one. (Here’s the Masks4All website, with lots more information, including how to make a mask.) Wear your mask if you need to go out, to buy food, for example, or to travel…