In its new Sessions series, the nonprofit shows the effects of climate change through a variety of lenses.

“The results are visible,” says landscape architect Jennifer Bolstad of the effects of climate change on Miami. “Even if people say they don’t believe in climate change, they believe in an octopus in the middle of their street.” This is one of the cheekier lines uttered in a new video series about the effects of rising sea levels on the South Florida city—it’s also the one that perhaps most effectively captures the complex relationship between Miami, its people, and the direct effects of climate change on the city.

Turning the Tide in Miami, a multipart video series produced by the nonprofit Van Alen Institute in partnership with The New Yorker and the documentary filmmaker Merete Mueller, is ostensibly a film about rising sea levels in Miami and their effect on the city’s future. In reality, though, like the fallout from serious climate change, the results are far more complex.