Is 'La Palma' Effective With its Climate Change Message?

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If you love TV series about climate change and are passionate about climate action, you can check out the hit Netflix series ‘La Palma’.

The limited series about a tsunami hitting the Canary Islands in Spain has secured the top spot in Netflix’s Top 10 TV series globally this week.

The series opens with the arrival of a Norwegian family on the island of La Palma for a Christmas holiday. Parallel to their story, a Norwegian researcher, Marie, at the La Palma Geological Institute discovers a crack in a mountain with a fellow researcher, which implies an impending volcanic eruption.

Although the series is fictional, Steven N. Ward and Simon Day put forward a theory in a 2001 paper. The theory states that a Manhattan-sized chunk of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary Islands La Palma could collapse into the Atlantic Ocean and cause a tsunami with a potential for large-scale destruction.

Since then, researchers have cast doubts about the likelihood of the mountainous collapse and the endurance of the tsunami. In 2021, an eruption took place at the Cumbrian Vieja volcanic ridge. It lasted 85 days and caused destruction worth 843 million euros.

In the series, the institute’s leader, Alvoro, hesitates to contact the government and raise the alarm about the tsunami because he has previously cried wolf. This part of the series highlights the challenges of the social and political hierarchy, which impedes quick action when it comes to climate change and natural disasters. Nonetheless, Alvoro’s words, ‘gas, ash, and lava’ echo throughout the first half of the series, not only foreshadowing the disaster to come but also as a call to swift action.

This limited series highlights the flaws in the government’s management of natural disasters. The series shows the Spanish government’s hesitancy to act quickly and its lack of preparation for natural disasters. All these developments don’t provide enough time for a proper evacuation, which leads to chaos on the island. Marie’s fellow researcher Haukur says, “I’ve done the math. It’s easy. There just aren’t enough boats in La Palma to get everyone to Tenerife.” His words shed light on the fight for survival caused by climate change, emphasizing the necessity of climate action.

The creators have provided a humanised perspective on a natural disaster from the tourist family’s story and Marie and her brother Erik’s story. These stories highlight the psychological and emotional impact of natural disasters on families, which is important to push for action against climate change.

However, there should have been more in-depth stories from the people of La Palma to show how their livelihoods on the island have been upended because of the tsunami. This lack of humanisation of the island’s inhabitants does not make the narrative holistic, since the disaster is only shown through the eyes of tourists and temporary residents.

The VFX of the series is good, especially related to showing the progression of the natural disaster. It emphasizes what a menace nature can be, leaving no one and nothing spared in the wake of its terror.

However, the creators have solely focused on the survival of the main characters, showing that they escaped the tsunami, which is not even possible in some cases, but is a result of a cliché and romanticized storytelling.

Creators who want to produce TV series about climate change should look for alternative narratives instead of the natural disaster story because it is not necessarily effective in conveying a message in a time of desensitisation.

When Erik says, “So if we’re gonna survive as long as they (sea turtles) have, we need to start listening. To nature,” you’d expect it will stay with your viewers. However, it is easy to forget because this message has been echoed for years through novels, movies, TV series, and social media in the same repetitive manner that people have become desensitised to it.

Directors and writers need to create stories centered on climate action to help viewers understand what can be done to mitigate the effects of climate change because stories like ‘La Palma’ raise awareness, but they do not tell you how one can make a change.