2040 - Film Review

The documentary 2040 is director Damon Gameau's visual letter to his four-year-old daughter, to show how technological advances might shape the future world she will live in. The film uses some excellent visual effects to bring alive statistics and abstract ideas (such as Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics). Gameau also travels around the world to investigate practices and techniques that are currently in use somewhere in the world and which on a bigger scale could offer realistic practical solutions to our current climate and ecological crisis.

Solutions investigated in the film include:

Marine Permaculture whereby seaweeds are planted in the oceans and used as food source for us, habitat for fish and carbon sink to take excess carbon out of the water;

Replacing privately owned cars with shared transport options and repurposing car parks into urban farms;

Regenerative agriculture combining an emphasis on growing crops for human consumption with allowing free range animals to feed on a natural diet and give back natural fertilisers to the soil with a no till philosophy;

Educating girls and young women and preventing early marriage so that women have children only when they are ready for them, thus reducing the world population without coercion;

Decentralised electrical grids based on individual households owning solar panels and sharing their electricity with their neighbours. This is already happening in Bangladesh and was the most inspiring part of the film.

The carbon footprint for this film must have been pretty high, what with all the flights Gameau took but all carbon emissions from the film have been offset and Gameau and his family have planted a new forest which could sequester up to 90 tonnes of carbon by 2040.

It's an inspiring and thought provoking film. You can find out more about it and add in your thoughts about what you want the world to be like in 2040 on the website What's Your 2040?

2040 is nominated for the 2019 Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.

2040 is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival at: 1820, Thursday 20 June and 11.10 Sunday 23 June, both at Odeon, Lothian Road. You can book tickets here.

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You can see my other reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 by following the links below

Boyz in the Wood.

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.