‘Extrapolations’ offers new perspective on climate change - KGET 17
‘Extrapolations’ offers new perspective on climate change | KGET 17
Films and television shows dealing with the impact of climate change have tended to look at the end results. The new eight-part AppleTV+ series, “Extrapolations,” is designed to examine what happens before the end comes.
The streaming service offering that starts March 17 uses eight stories to explore the intimate, life-altering choices that must be made when the planet is changing faster than the population. When the fate of humanity is up against a ticking clock, the battle between courage and complacency becomes more important than ever.
Executive producer Scott Z. Burns took this different approach to the look at climate change issues because he doesn’t believe we know what the end of this story will be.
“We do know enough science now to know that there are a lot of steps between where we are today and the end. And so what I wanted to do was to tell a series of stories that allows you to go on this hopefully-amazing thrill ride between where we are today and where we might end up and what we can do to change any of those steps along the way.”
Bringing these stories to life is an all-star cast that includes Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Kit Harington, Daveed Diggs, Edward Norton, Diane Lane, Tahar Rahim, Yara Shahidi, Matthew Rhys, Gemma Chan, David Schwimmer, Adarsh Gourav, Keri Russell, Marion Cotillard, Forest Whitaker, Eiza González, Murray Bartlett, Indira Varma, Tobey Maguire, MaameYaa Boafo, Hari Nef, Heather Graham, Michael Gandolfini, Cherry Jones, Gaz Choudhry, Ben Harper, Judd Hirsch and Neska Rose.
Executive producer Dorothy Fortenberry was also drawn to the idea of looking at these monumental issues from a different perspective where “Extrapolations” examines climate change from the middle.
“This isn’t a story about how it began and this isn’t a story about 300 years in the future. This is a story that is rapidly approaching, that is happening all around us,” Fortenberry says. “And it was really exciting to imagine just projecting all the things we see every day a little bit forward, a little bit further, turning up the dial a little bit louder and imagining what those stories might be.”
To be able to write the eight stories, the team did a massive amount of research to try to imagine this potential version of the future. The vision of the future in “Extrapolations” is made up of a set of possibilities.
What they found in talking to climate scientists was that the path to the future could take many directions depending on what actions are taken along the way. The scripts were based on what scientists and experts suggested would be a path that seemed likely.
Fortenberry says, “This is a reasonable future. We weren’t trying to imagine a crazy one in a million possibility. We got all of that information. We had an incredible team of people who we worked with to get all the science to try to have it be as accurate as possible. And we wanted it to feel like a near future.”
One of the areas that is examined is what role religion plays in the crisis. Daveed Diggs (“Snowpiercer”) plays a rabbi whose message is wrapped up in what is happening to the planet.
As research, Diggs spoke with numerous rabbis to get their perspective.
“There is this real sense, particularly from the folks I spoke to, of activism around things like climate change that is being sort of woven into the faith traditions,” Diggs says. “I was sort of surprised, I think, as a laissez-faire kind of Berkeley Jew.
“We have this sort of projection of religion as an anti-science thing. And that’s not what I found in speaking to people. It’s actually about how do we mobilize our communities, which we are the center of a community. How do we mobilize these communities to be actively part of the process of changing things? And that was a really interesting thing to learn for somebody who’s going through this crisis of faith in the show, brought on by this little girl asking these exact questions. Are we being punished and not having a real answer to that?”
The character played by Matthew Rhys provides a cynical perspective. Although he is well aware of the problems facing the world, his solution is to not care because he will be dead by the time the planet is consumed.
Rhys says that viewpoint is terrifying.
“The truth is it’s far more disturbing. And, as we used to discuss about smoking. We all know about smoking. But it’s not until some get lung cancer that something is done,” Rhys says.
“Extrapolations” will premiere with the first three episodes on March 17 followed by new episodes weekly, every Friday through April 21.