Time goes by neither too fast nor too slow. Time is – sometimes cleverly so. For instance, tomorrow is today. Or if you prefer, today is tomorrow. Anyway, climate change. Maybe you didn’t guess I was going there, and don’t get me started about yesterday.
The documentary “Tomorrow” is the kind of film we need to experience. It doesn’t spend much of its focus on the depressing underpinning of our fossil fueled push toward the biggest gloom and doom scenario this side of nuclear catastrophe. It spends most of its two hours showing ongoing examples of people, communities, governments, and corporations around the world that are already doing things to address climate change.
In a personable way, this film travels its practical, tactical patchwork, presenting infrastructures of hope, or at least an appropriate traction forward. Its accessible philosophy asserts the viability and resilience of people caring about the lives of people.
“Tomorrow” isn’t some romanticized frolic of young activists traveling the globe. It does dabble in spiritual motivation, but it grounds itself in the hard work of growing our food. It conspires in commitments and opportunities for real people. Without exactly spouting “Think global; act local,” it resonates with lessons of taking part on a level you can touch and feel and affect.
It encourages with existing experiments (and by the way, we can’t do good until we try). It’s happening in business, in government, in whole countries. Hint: people work in businesses and governments. People make a country what it is.
The film spends substantial time on food, a vital foundation in any discussion about tomorrow. Working examples, understandably, deal with how we consume energy. Perhaps most interesting and less familiar, it explains a few of the “complementary currencies” in the world. (Imagine spending your $21 bill in a network that is as confident circulating its own money as it is using expensive monopoly money manufactured by the big bank system.)
For moviegoers who feel they are already well engaged, this mindful, essentially positive presentation integrates the necessary conversation well. For those less engaged, same thing.