The number of great works of art about climate change could be counted, comfortably, on the single hand of a soon-to-be-extinct orangutan. As with all the most pressing issues of our time, the process of converting dismal reality to affecting art is an alchemy too far. It either renders the product sentimental and sensationalised, or indigestible in its over-cooked virtue. Extrapolations, the big-budget AppleTV+ anthology about a world on the brink of ruin, achieves something quite extraordinary: it manages to be both sappy and sermonising.
The action begins in 2037, as fires tear through the Middle East and sea levels threaten low-lying cities. As governments scramble to agree new climate accords (we see negotiators at COP42 in Tel Aviv), tech genius Nick Bilton (Kit Harington; not good for my SEO), and his company Alpha, could hold the key. Their patents for desalination technology would allow a parched Earth some respite – but what are the conditions that will be placed upon freeing up this lucrative invention? It could all lie in the metals and minerals under the melting ice of the Arctic (Apple does, after all, know a lot about batteries).
