EEXmas - Titanics and Eastenders of 2023

From Klima Club to Culture Club

Lets finish 2023 with something a little different. It’s more than enough to negotiate family politics at Christmas, so this week, we’re all about culture. 

It’s a common refrain that climate change is far away in time and space. Distance reduces the threat, and the emotion, that would drive action to the scale required. Now, this is increasingly untrue, heat domes in California, fire in Vancouver, and drought in Germany show climate is here and now. But even if it were true, there are ways we can bridge distance. 

There’s a wealth of research for example, that experiencing climate disasters through virtual reality increases climate concern. But, if the UK were 100 people only two people would use a VR headset regularly. Only one more will do by this time next year. In comparison, 28 read a book daily and 92 own a smart TV. The average adult this year watched TV for almost four hours a day or 11 episodes of Simpsons back-to-back. TV, film and books all offer a way to make climate visible and real. 

I think about climate media into two types; Titanics and Eastenders. 

We all know the Titanics - big effect, much drama. These are your major apocalyptic, unsubtle blockbusters. Now humans have always liked an apocalyptic tale, just ask the Mayans, but they are everywhere at the moment. You don’t have to wait until the Day After Tomorrow, it is no longer Inconvenient (Truth). Like a circumspect California cult, we can live every day like it’s the apocalypse.

The Eastenders are more mundane. These are your everyday shows, watched by many more people, that are making either the experience of climate change or the transition more normal, more human. Grey’s Anatomy last year set several episodes in the centre of Seattle’s Heatdome, each of which was watched by the equivalent of the population of London. Meanwhile, Netflix signed a deal this year with General Motors to use EVs as the average car in its productions rather than petrol and diesel. 

This is much more important for me than the PAY ATTENTION TO ME Titanics. Will and Grace, and UK soaps too, put homosexuality in the background rather a central plot point or unusual feature of an eccentric character. We’ve also gradually removed smoking from TV rather than glamourising it. Adding transition tech, or weird weather into normal TV is the climate equivalent.

In real life, we know that people are much more likely to get solar if friends, family or neighbours have it. If the Great British Bake Off is using electric hobs, Top Gear, electric vehicles or there’s a heat pump on the set of Mrs Brown’s Boys it raises awareness and reduces the mental jump to ‘it's for people like me’. Boring is good sometimes.

Now I am obliged to mention at Christmas this is not going to work in every film. Home Alone would be a terrible with a heat pump. If Kevin was in a warm, cosy home without the scary clunking furnace in the basement we would’ve lost both atmosphere and a major plot point

So because I love an end-of-year review listicle (there’s no better way to get me to see a film than turning it into a to-do list), here are the 11 Titanic and Eastender media I saw or read (not that was released!) this year. 

Leave the World Behind (Film, Netflix). This a blinding example of read the book before watching the film. The whole point of the book, one of my favourites, was that the unknown dread sat in the background. It was intense and just kept building. But Netflix don’t have the attention span to build that same tension, they shot for a blockbuster which was more action than disturbing, and I found lost all the deep dread that was central to the book. They turned an Eastender into a Titanic. 

Killers of the Flower Moon (Film). I wasn’t convinced this was a climate movie, but someone made a reasonable case to me that it’s a spotlight on US environmental justice, with the Osage Nation experiencing what Alaskan inuits are now with the Willow pipeline. I love a Scorcese blockbuster, but it’s very distracting to just think throughout that; this could do with a good edit. You focus on all the bits that shouldn’t be in it rather than the great bits that are.

Last of Us (TV, HBO). Look I’m in my 30s I cry at most television, but my word, this series brought me to dangerous levels of dehydration. I was skeptical that the game, which is so immersive and visceral, could be adapted, but it felt effortless. If you only watch one episode, make it Bill’s Episode 3 and bring the tissues. NB: Hasn’t put me off mushrooms.

Silo (TV, AppleTV). More blockbuster apocalypse. The remnants of society are living underground because something happened, all they can see of the surface is one dead tree. Proper good detective stuff here, and a definite climate motivator, I do not want to live underground thanks. 

Extrapolations (TV, AppleTV). Got halfway through episode 2 and gave up. Just awful, felt like being hectored by a bunch of celebrities barely in character, which given the correlation between salary and emissions just comes across as hypocritical. Called Extrapolations for a reason because it lost any grounding in reality. 

Reservation Dogs (TV, Disney). The most criminally overlooked comedy on TV. Environmental activism and justice are a subtle backdrop to the lives of young Native Americans trying to escape the dullness of their reservation. 

William Knifeman played by Dallas Goldtooth, long-time environmental activist

Ministry of the Future (Book, Kim Stanley Robinson). I have mixed feelings on this one, undoubtedly the most knowledgeable and ambitious attempt to turn intnerational climate policy and negotiations into reality. But in its breadth failed to develop characters who end up feeling stunted, and often skirted over pain and hardship, with moretime spent on philosophical musings or explanations of complex economic theory, which makes it come off techno-optimist. Suggested Modern Monetary Theory was viable which almost put me off.

Venomous Lumpsucker (Book, Ned Beauman). If you hate brexit and hate climate change this is the book for you. Some of the references to the future post-Brexit UK in this fictional future are a bit on the nose, but genuinely funny and lighter than a lot of climate futures. Supposed to be a critique of carbon pricing and economic value of nature, but I came away thinking extinction credits might be a viable policy. 

Parable of the Sower (Graphic Novel, Octavia Butler). The O.G. Terrifying that this is set in the 2030s and feels all to viable a path, where the collapse of democracy combines with climate to trap the US in a semi-feudal state. Like Handmaids Tale yet again people are trying escaping to Canada. Beautifully illustrated makes the suffering visceral, not something for before bed.

Making Climate Policy Work (non-fiction book, Cullenward & Victor). Carbon pricing is not a silver bullet, but it is very important. Cullenward & Victor do an admirable job or reviewing pricing schemes around the world, even if their starting point is heavy scepticism. Coloured I think by American failure rather than increasing EU success. 

The Planet Remade (non-fiction book, Oliver Morton). The oldest book on the list because it’s taken me three years to read. A good companion to Ministry of the Future, explores the actual science and real-world challenges of geoengineering, if a little light on the political difficulties. 

What was your best piece of climate culture this year?

Have a great Christmas. Election Energy will be back in the new year.