Review: Documentary '2040' gives a hopeful look at climate change, and the solutions that could be available to us now
Australian filmmaker Damon Gameau manages something quite remarkable with his documentary “2040”: He makes a documentary about climate change that isn’t doom-laden and pessimistic, but hopeful and, believe it or not, joyous.
It all starts with the premise. Gameau first shows us his happy home life, with his wife Zoe and their 4-year-old daughter, Velvet. Then he asks, as any father would, what kind of future Velvet will have — and what technologies exist right now that, if fully implemented, could give her a decent future when she’s 25 years old, in the year 2040.
So Gameau travels around the world (all carbon emissions used on his travels are offset by carbon credits, the opening title card tells us) to see what’s being developed. He shows us solar panels on homes in Bangladesh, networked through “microgrid” systems that pay back homeowners for unused electricity. He talks about driverless cars that people will use on an as-needed basis, reducing the need to buy and park their own autos. He shows us regenerative agriculture in Australia and seaweed cultivation in the ocean — both of which can both reduce carbon but also produce healthier food.
In Gameau’s show-and-tell of these forward-thinking technologies, he makes brief mention of the forces arrayed against them — namely, entrenched industries like agribusiness and Big Oil that won’t want to give up their hold on the status quo. But Gameau prefers not to be a downer, instead showing us a lighthearted look at an adult Velvet (Eva Lazzaro) living her best life in a utopian future of self-driving cars, urban farms, coffee cups that can be planted for crops after use, and empowered girls getting their educations.
A little too pie in the sky? Perhaps. But after years of environmental documentaries that are aimed at scaring us into composting and putting coastal cities on stilts, Gameau’s view of “2040” is a welcome approach that shows what positive steps Velvet’s generation can do to make up for what her predecessors have done wrong.
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‘2040’
★★★
Available beginning Friday, June 5, as a video-on-demand rental through virtual cinemas (including SLFS@Home). Not rated, but probably PG for mature themes. Running time: 92 minutes.