Extrapolations: Creative Climate Action Through Story-telling

Have you seen the AppleTV plus series from producer Scott Z. Burns?

It's a captivating TV show set in the future with the background of the climate crisis.

Think Black Mirror meets An Inconvenient Truth.

The actors - Sienna Miller, Daveed Diggs, Meryl Streep, Ed Norton, Kit Harrington, and Forest Whitaker to name a few -- give compelling performances and highlight family dramas during a changing climate.

As many of you know, I love time travel so this series struck a cord with me. We watch the same characters weave in and out of each others lives over time -- in 2037, 2046, 2059, 2066, 2068, and 2070.

The stories paint a stark vision of the future, including how technology has taken over the human experience. If you don't have eco-anxiety now, this thought-provoking might make the crisis even more real for you now and make the term mean even more. Characters with memory loss from heat-induced injuries have to pay to "access memories," or videos and images of their lives that are stored on the cloud.

The challenges of geo-engineering become clear when the President of the United States gives implicit approval for a renegade billionaire to try it with this private fleet of pilots and supersonic planes. Spoiler alert: it doesn't work.

The narratives also explore how captialism isn't the fix. We have broken system if we think that corporations will solve for our biggest problems. The inequities in living across the globe come to life in remarkable visuals and story lines.

No spoilers, but consider how technology helps us deal with death and tries to connect us to our loved ones, access our memories, and even consider "digitizing" ourselves until a better future awaits.

This beautifully written and acted series also addresses the range of emotions we'll feel if we don't act on climate, not just anxiety. The rage, sorrow, sadness -- and the triumph of the human spirit to always try to find joy - Extrapolations covers it all.

We're honored to be part of a terrific network of nonprofit organizations to serve as resources for viewers of Extrapolations since the show aired in 2023.

The series asks many probing questions - but the first has to be, what can I do? Then how can I get involved? And how do we create a better world?

We are at a crossroads. It's time to act.

I'm also excited about engaging creatives in the future about what a greener future could be. What could it look like? What could feel like?

We can be awesome ancestors.

If you haven't already, please watch and let us know what you think!

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Heather White is the founder and CEO of OneGreenThing.org. She is an author with HarperCollins and has published three books: Eco-Anxiety, 60 Days to a Greener Life, and One Green Thing.