Editor’s note: To bring more attention and scrutiny to sustainability-themed storytelling efforts, 17 Communications’ Dmitriy Ioselevich and ImpactAlpha have launched a kind of Rotten Tomatoes for the impact investing crowd. To help separate the gems from the groaners, Dmitriy rates films and TV shows on a scale of 0-15, with a maximum of five points in each of three categories:
- Accuracy – Are the depictions of sustainability generally accurate? Is it a fair illustration of how people in sustainability think and interact.
- Entertainment – Is the film or show genuinely entertaining? Are people going to enjoy watching it? Are they going to tell their friends to watch it?
- Impact – How will this film or TV show inspire people to change their behavior? Will there be a long-lasting impact after they’ve finished watching?
Paradise (2025)
Score: 10 (Accuracy – 2; Entertainment – 4; Impact – 4)
Spoiler level: High
Stream season 1 on Hulu (trailer)
Paradise is a fitting name for a high-stakes drama that depicts, among other things, how humanity reacts to an apocalyptic natural disaster.
The climate-fueled disaster comes to the forefront in Episode Seven, provocatively titled “The Day,” when (spoiler warning!) a supervolcano erupts under the Antarctic ice sheet, fracturing large portions of the ice shelf and instantly melting trillions of gallons of water. The force of the eruption triggers a 300-foot tsunami that rockets across the globe at 600 miles per hour, destroying everything in its path. To get a sense of scale here, imagine your city getting hit by a million Statues of Liberty moving at the speed of a commercial airliner. Everyone is caught completely unprepared, except for perhaps the one scientist (Dr. Louge, played by Geoffrey Arend) who had been warning political leaders for years that something like this might happen.
[Fact check: Yes, there are volcanoes on Antarctica – more than 130 according to recent estimates – and they do occasionally erupt. There’s even a volcano called Mount Erebus that emits literal gold dust. It’s unknown how an eruption would affect the ice sheets – at a minimum, it would probably lead to some melting and an increase in sea levels. But a world-destroying tsunami seems very unlikely, according to scientists.]
The reactions to the imminent disaster among White House personnel are all too predictable.
- “You said we’d have warning!”
- “You told me everything was going to be okay.”
- “How long did you know?”
- “What the **** happened?”
- “Look at what you let happen!”
The mea culpa offered by a high-ranking government official reads like something every world leader probably has pre-drafted in their crisis communications playbook: “We thought we’d have warning, but this happened faster than the worst-case scenario in all our modeling.”
The pre-recorded speech written for the U.S. President Cal Bradford (played by James Marsden) to broadcast to the world is not much better: “While the images from that part of the world are unsettling, it’s important we remain calm, because a tsunami moves fast, but fear moves faster. This will be a challenging moment… The United States has weathered many great challenges in the past and has always come through stronger. This will be no exception. When the dust clears from this tragic day, we will go forward, as Americans, as a beacon of strength in a sometimes dark world.”
You have to love the nod to American exceptionalism, even in the face of an extinction-level event. Very on-brand for today’s political discourse.
Disaster porn
What makes Paradise such compelling TV is its portrayal of how people process tragedy. Whether it’s a parent, a soldier or a president, everyone processes trauma differently. These emotional reactions are what makes us human – it’s what gives us a sense of right and wrong.
This theme is at the heart of the show, most of which focuses on a murder investigation within a closed community of 25,000 hand-selected people, who have been evacuated to a hastily built underground compound in the Colorado mountains called Paradise City. The city is the brainchild of a grief counselor (Dr. Gabriela Torabi, played by Sarah Shai) and a grief-stricken billionaire (code name Sinatra, played by Julianne Nicholson), who financed the project with the help of her billionaire friends and, of course, Uncle Sam.
Paradise City is designed to look like Any Town, USA, featuring such amenities as a fully stocked grocery store, a dive bar, and an annual carnival. There’s even a diner with “the world’s all-time greatest cheese fries” – made with cashew cheese, but still! The theory behind these attempts at normalcy is that it helps the residents to feel more stable and secure, and not have to constantly think about the fact that they live in a cave and many of their loved ones are dead.
In the words of Dr. Torabi, the self-proclaimed “architect of social well-being” behind Paradise City: “I was hired to help make a community of grieving, dislocated people live a flourishing life…. It’s why the population down here was so limited. It’s… just small enough to retain that sense of community.”
There is plenty of legitimacy to this idea. Psychologists have published plenty of research that shows how people, particularly in times of crisis, crave a community where they can feel safe and secure. The last thing a new community needs is an outbreak of mass PTSD.
The interesting question I would pose for viewers is how would they react in such a situation? Would they be able to pretend everything is normal? How much normalcy would they be willing to surrender if it was for the greater good? I’d like to think most people would be willing to sacrifice alcohol to save an additional, say, 5,000 people. After all…
- 88% are willing to pay more for healthier foods
- Travelers are willing to pay at least 10% more for sustainable travel options
- 40% of U.S. retail investors are willing to sacrifice higher returns in order to create a positive impact, and 67% are willing to sacrifice up to 10% in returns
- 39% of people said they are trying to eat less meat
Centralized planning
The residents of Paradise City weren’t given such a choice. The decision was made for them by the city’s planners, purportedly for the mental well-being of the city’s residents. (Or, if you want to believe the explanation given by Dr. Torabi, because of limitations with the air filtration system.)
We see similar examples of central planning in other post-apocalyptic shows like Silo and Fallout. Each underground community has its own government, schools, and hospitals – each resident has a job and opportunities for commerce and entertainment. There is no homelessness in these communities and crime is virtually unheard of. Sounds pretty good, right?
But the reality is that the founders of these communities intentionally prioritized convenience and quality of life over maximizing the number of lives saved. If this sounds like a cynical take, consider the surging popularity of “doomsday” bunkers that, for the right price, could offer a level of comfort that would be indistinguishable from a high-end hotel.
I have no doubt that many of the world’s governments have ‘Versaille’-like plans for surviving major disasters or conflicts. Most billionaires probably also have an exit strategy – New Zealand apparently. Maybe there won’t be carnivals in the apocalyptic future, but I’m sure there will be plenty of alcohol.
But what happens to the rest of us? Is a human life worth a bottle of wine? Or a hamburger? Would you give up flying to save your grandchildren? Do you think your boss would give up flying to save your grandchildren?
There are the sorts of choices and ethical dilemmas that humans now face as a species. Nobody really knows how much time until those choices have to be made, but the moment of doomsday – or more accurately the cascading series of tipping points that will bring humanity closer to mass extinction – draws closer by the day.
Towards the end of the first season of Paradise, at least one character seems to be shaken out of his stupor. “They had a chance to start over down here… to build a better world. Instead, they chose more of the same. Bloated houses for the privileged few. Guns. Made this place a prison. It’s the American ****ing dream.”
At least President Bradford is right about thing: “The world is 19 times more ****еd than anyone realizes.”
