In 2012: Time for Change, Daniel Pinchbeck investigates how to survive and thrive during changing times. Joao Amorim directs.
Thoughtful, visionary documentary
Pinchbeck walks his talk as he shares ways to live consciously so that all can thrive on earth. The founder of the Evolver social movement and editorial director of Reality Sandwich interviews scholars and leaders around the world.
Animation is also used to investigate spiritual practices, sacred activism and new technologies for surviving change with grace and ease.
Functional design, habitat restoration, ecological detoxification, intentional community, aquaponic agriculture, wind power, open source currency and diverse currency tools are among the ideas examined.
Time to take action
This film is similar to the post-modernist documentary Thrive and surpasses Armageddon dramas like Battle Los Angeles.
Amorim’s film transcends apocalypse hype by advocating action. “Apocalypse” means “uncovering,” and doesn’t necessarily signal doom, according to Pinchbeck.
Asking forward-looking questions
“Focusing on what will happen in 2012 may just be the wrong question,” Pinchbeck told a meeting of the Left Forum in New York City.
Instead we should ask “‘What type of change can we bring about?’ It’s going to be up to individuals and then communities to make a profound shift,” he says.
Archival footage of the “Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century,” design scientist R. Buckminster Fuller, is shown.
New technologies emerge despite resistance
Groundbreaking technologies for sustainable energy, health and farming have already been developed, says Pinchbeck. These advances have been suppressed by powerful special interests time and again, he maintains.
Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard cites Fuller. “We now have the resources, technology and knowhow to make the world a 100% physical success for everyone without taking it away or destroying our environment,” she says.
Many cultural creatives have planted “seed ideas” to help humanity, Hubbard says. These are quietly growing and taking root.
Love one another
“The only way to get to the future [Fuller] was seeing was about completely transforming your consciousness, loving one another as yourself,” she says.
Hot button issues like water scarcity and depleted soil are reviewed. Michael Dorsey, Ph.D. of Dartmouth College notes that current economic and social systems do not deliver justice, environmental protection and human rights. “The system is broken,” he believes.
Water: the next oil
“Water’s the next oil,” warns Maude Barlow, Senior Advisor on Water Issues to the United Nations. “Water scarcity has already reached a dire limit for two billion people in the world,” she says.
“As water becomes more corporately controlled, as water becomes more expensive because it’s controlled for profit, it’s going to be denied to people who can’t afford it. It’s already happening now in communities in the global south where water metering is going on,” according to Barlow.
“Green Revolution” a scam
The “Green Revolution” has led to “dependency on corporations to supply seed, to supply chemicals,” says Penny Livingstone-Stark, a permaculture designer. Monoculture farming, she says, serves to “disconnect people from their land, pollute water systems, deforest the earth.”
Livingstone-Stark explains how using soil biology sustainably perpetuates living systems and increases crop yields.
Reclaiming our nature connection
Reclaiming our lost connection to nature is the key to healing individuals, societies and the planet, Pinchbeck concludes.
Policarpo Chaj, activist and executive director of Maya Vision, explains how past and future are cyclical in Mayan thought. The 2012 prophecy of earth changes and economic downturns is already happening, Chaj and other scholars say.
Spiritual practices endorsed
Filmmaker David Lynch, who has practiced Transcendental Meditation for almost 35 years, tells Pinchbeck that he overcame anger shortly after he began meditating. Looking within helped him “find infinite intelligence, creativity, bliss, energy, love, power,” he adds.
Pinchbeck uses the psychoactive root bark ayahuasca to more deeply perceive reality.
British rock singer Sting, who co-founded the Rainforest Foundation and practiced Ashtanga yoga, notes that he also took ayahuasca. Fasting and meditation are also effective ways to connect with the Divine, he adds.
Welcome to the global tribe
Pinchbeck sees an empowered “global tribe” replacing poor, suffering masses. This film is based on his book 2012: The Return to Quetzalcoatl. His essay collection Notes from the Edge Times has just been published. (4.5 out of 5 stars)
If you like 2012: Time for Change, you might enjoy: Thrive; 2012: The Odyssey; Dalai Lama Renaissance.
2012: Time for Change 2010 / NR / 1 hour, 40 min
Cast Overview: Daniel Pinchbeck, Mitch Horowitz, Michael Dorsey, Ph.D., Gaspar P. Gonzalez, Penny Livingston, Maude Barlow, Bernard Lietaer, Joel Kovel, Michael D. Coe, Ph.D., Policarpo Chaj, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Terence McKena, Steven Colbert, Sting, Dennis McKenna, Barbara Marx Hubbard, R. Buckminster Fuller
Director: Joao Amorim
Genre: Documentary, Spirituality, Science & Nature, Current Affairs, Animation