I wanted to see the movie because of Zehner's fantastic book, Green Illusions. I thought the parts that he was featured in were great. The most damning criticism against Bill McKibben in the film is that he supported biomass. He should be criticized for that position -- he should absolutely have known better -- but by the time the film was released, he had very publicly changed it. I think that should have been noted in the film.

There is a historically elitist streak to conservationists and environmentalists going back to the late 19th century that makes many cringe when they talk about the need for population control. I think it's a little overblown to refer to the film as racist for mentioning population control, but I think it would have been better if they had linked that to the only known way of effectively lowering birthrates (educating women).

I think the film is worth watching, but I think Zehner's book might be a better use of everyone's time.

I also think Ozzie that your book did much more service to the environmental movement than this film. The film is — least to say — short on facts and solutions and high on sensationalism.

The quality of the depiction in the film is also highly amateur — which is typical of self-made documentaries, not just this film — and really does more harm than service to the environment. Your book discussed the issues objectively, factually and gave a full description of the prices we are paying for renewables, while then admitting that that’s the only solution we have provided we drastically cut down our consumption (which is the best and only possible approach indeed).

The film on the other hand presents little information about the climate issue, very few facts, unlike your book. The focus on the “conspiracy” of the biomass industry is especially what make the film less credible. Criticizing the industry is absolutely needed. But conspiracy thinking: no thank you. It’s not hard to see today how conspiracy theories, along with their post-truth philosophical underpinnings, are endangering the very fabric our societies. By fanning the flames around conspiracies, you are only propping up an assault on rational thinking and on the factual world, and this is surely not conducive to solving the climate crisis — afterall such conspiracy theories and divorce from reality is precisely what climate denialism is based on.

As I mentioned in my review of the film:

“In the whole film, of 1hr 39 mins, the producer barely dedicated 2-3 mins to hint at solutions. I think documentaries like these only make the problem worse. They make people feel good about themselves, and continue on buying stuff, eating meat and consuming like crazy, al the while schizophrenically thinking this is all ok since they watched a documentary and they "know" they're doing better than the big banks and the industry tycoons who are the source of all evil in the world. Except these tycoons are simply producing junk for precisely people like them.

The movie probably does more harm than good, since any right-wing conspiracy theorist will just come and selectively pick up lines and slips from this "documentary" to knock down the very people actually trying to tackle the climate issue.

The film could have been much more useful had the producers talked about the side effects of green energy in a smaller portion of the film, but also compared them to other options and more importantly discussed actual solutions. Here are the solutions: stop taking the plane instead of complaining about the airline companies, stop eating meat instead of complaining about the Amazon deforestation, stop buying useless things that go dead the month after you buy them, and stop wasting your time watching documentaries and spend that time studying your behaviors and their impact instead.”

I really think the quality of your activism, as I gleaned it from your book, was lost on such a cheap documentary.