‘Extrapolations’ is the climate TV show we’re finally ready for – the Grist

Image from AppleTV's new climate TV show, Extrapolations, via Youtube.

If Hollywood has the power to shape our collective imagination for good, it has too often failed when it comes to compelling stories about climate. But that untapped power is part of what makes Extrapolations, the new Apple TV+ series being touted as the biggest-budget scripted TV show ever made about global warming, so intriguing…

“There has been so much storytelling done around the post-apocalyptic, denuded world,” said producer and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns. “But before we get to that end, there’s a lot of messy middle…”

Opinion: Through an Artist’s Eye, Scientific Tools Help Tell Vital Stories – Undark Magazine

Night Projections: Robert Mosse at George Washington University, Washington DC November 7, 2011 (by Elvert Barnes CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr).

Perhaps one of the most salient marks of human ingenuity is our ability to peer into places our eyes were never designed to see. We can now glimpse the birth of distant galaxies with the Webb telescope, or spot structures hidden deep inside the human cell through electron cryomicroscopy…But through an artist’s eye, such technological tools can transcend their scientific purpose to deliver insights about our fast-warming planet that are more likely to resonate with the public…

Opinion: Facts Haven’t Spurred Us to Climate Action. Can Fiction? – Undark Magazine

Science-fiction art directed toward climate change, melting ice and re-emerging life forms (illustration by David S. Soriano, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia).

SCIENTISTS MUST BE wondering what it will take to scare us straight. Watching flood waters submerge 80 percent of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina didn’t do it. Nor did videos shot by Australians in 2019 as they fled walls of flame, a hellish orange haze in all directions. Will the deaths of more than 6 million people in the Covid-19 pandemic …jolt the world into action? I wouldn’t count on it.

Frans Lanting’s ‘Bay of Life’ Project Showcases Local Ecosystem – Good Times

The Bay of Life Exhibit at MAH, January 21, 2023 (by D Shrestha Ross CC BY-SA)

I can almost smell smoke as I stare at one of the photographs on display…Deep orange flames swallow a hillside next to the ocean, and thick smoke blacks out the sky. It’s a photo from the 2020 CZU fire.

“We were engulfed by it,” says (Frans) Lanting. “Chris and I live in Bonny Doon. And we nearly lost our own home. But we banded together with neighbors to fight off the fire…”

Bay of Life – Frans Lanting and Christine Eckstrom – MAH

Excerpt:
The Bay of Life is a unique confluence of land and sea, energized by the sun, shaped by the forces of fog and fire, and influenced by the actions of people.

“We know of no other place in the world where land and sea connect
in such an extraordinary way.”
–Frans Lanting and Chris Eckstrom

Bay of Life: From Wind to Whales is a new exhibition from renowned National Geographic photographer-writer team Frans Lanting and Chris Eckstrom that brings land and sea together for a unified view of Monterey Bay and its natural abundance.

The exhibition is on view at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH) from January 19, 2023 to April 30, 2023.  The exhibition supports Lanting and Eckstrom’s new book, Bay of Life: From Wind to Whales, which documents how the region has recovered, telling a hopeful story of how damaged ecosystems can be restored when people care and take action together. Numerous organizations and institutions have played key roles in the region’s ecological comeback. Bay of Life celebrates their achievements and ties together the work of scientists and conservationists in both marine and terrestrial fields.

‘Bay of Life’ enlarges the vision of what we all call ‘home’ – Lookout Santa Cruz

The Bay of Life Exhibit at MAH, January 21, 2023 (by D Shrestha Ross CC BY-SA)

Excerpt: A project from Bonny Doon photographer Frans Lanting and writer Chris Eckstrom, is on display at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History…Bay of Life gives equal weight to land and sea…It gives respect, even love, to the coastal fog that so many of us curse…It acknowledges the vulnerability of the region to wildfire and drought. It also recognizes the native cultures that existed in this region for centuries before European settlement…

‘The Deluge’ is a climate nightmare — and it’s based on reality – Grist

Cover of the new novel "Deluge" by Stephen Markley (published January 10, 2023, courtesy Simon & Schuster).

Excerpt: Stephen Markley explains how he wrote a dystopia that feels a little too real.

It was the year 2028, and I was hiding with eco-terrorists in a cabin deep in the woods…Birds were dropping dead from the sky, and a dust storm raged around us, turning the sun crimson…I was relieved to wake up from this dream and shake my paranoia that the FBI was after me. That’s how immersive The Deluge is, an ambitious new novel by Stephen Markley…