Climate of Change

Tilda Swinton’s narration of Simon Armitage’s striking poem about the earth is the narrative thread through Climate of Change. Most documentaries nowadays are workman-like at best, but Brian Hill’s film is a thing of beauty and hope. Even as logging companies rape the rain forest of New Guinea and coal companies level the mountains of Appalachia, Climate of Change shows activists of all backgroundsfrom stubborn West Virginia hillbillies to precocious Indian school childrenstanding up against environmental degradation. As a British woman puts it while bagging paper for recycled bin, “Ordinary people are the only people who will change the world.” Change of Climate is out on DVD.