Josh Healey was confused the first time he heard his friend Dania Cabello say she was heading up to the North Pole.

Like many of us, Healey’s first association was with the top of the world, that frozen place pegged to our globe’s most northernmost spot, and popularized in cartoons as a place of wintry wonder. That wasn’t what she was talking about. Once Cabello clarified it was what folks growing up in North Oakland during the 1990s and 2000s called their neighborhood, a seed was planted.

“The metaphor just felt so real,” Healey, originally from Washington, D.C., said. “It was like the climate of the neighborhood was changing.”

The nickname has become a fitting metaphor for a neighborhood — and city — watching its climate and landscape shift due to cultural forces like rising housing costs, and its residents — known to each other as polar bears — go extinct. It’s also the premise of “The North Pole,” a comedy web series that had its second season premiere in September.

“Back then, gentrification didn’t exist. That word didn’t exist for us at least, and we weren’t really thinking about melting ice caps either,” series director Yvan Iturriaga said. He calls himself an adopted polar bear who spent his most formative years in the neighborhood. Iturriaga moved to North Oakland as a teenager in 1995 after living throughout Latin America in the extended Chilean exile community.

Healey and Iturriaga had been working together on videos about climate change actions and were looking to address issues that fell under the umbrella of social justice in a more complicated, creative way. That’s when, in 2015, the idea of “The North Pole” started to take shape.

The result was a satire chronicling the lives of three North Oakland best friends — Nina (Reyna Amaya), Marcus (Donte Clark) and Benny (Santiago Rosas) — as they navigate their rapidly changing neighborhood. The first season, told over seven brief episodes, sees the trio navigate gentrification, a rent hike, the impacts of climate change and slick-talking tech leaders who co-opt progressive values.

The second season carries similar threads but dives deeper into the story of Benny, who is facing deportation as an undocumented immigrant. Benny has been living in the Bay Area since he was a child after his family fled El Salvador during the civil war. Following advice from his lawyer, played by actress and executive producer Rosario Dawson, Benny decides to run for Alameda County sheriff.

“Do we really need a campaign profile on Tinder?” Benny asks in one episode.

“It’s called meeting the people where they’re at,” Nina retorts while sizing him up for a profile photo.

Given the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policy proposals, workplace ICE raids and the detention of Central American immigrants and asylum seekers at the border, Benny’s story line feels like a timely response to today’s political dilemmas. But, the season’s plot was developed before the 2016 election of Trump and is based on Iturriaga’s high school friend, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador who, like Benny, arrived as a child and lied about being Puerto Rican until he too was arrested and faced deportation.

“The issues are not current,” Iturriaga said. “They’re deep-seated.”

Produced in partnership with Oakland land and labor advocacy nonprofit Movement Generation (where Healey works), the show functions as both entertainment and an organizing strategy.

“We think about how to make the show work as a story,” Healey said. “Before we hit people politically, our goal is to hit your heart, your mind and your funny bone.”

For its second season premiere, “The North Pole” went on a national tour to cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago and New York. At each screening, the creators partner with grassroots groups in the area that connect the themes of the show, like immigrant rights or climate action, to offer a chance for attendees to get involved with work that’s happening in their local communities.

But while the themes of the show are resonant in communities across the country, Healey maintains “The North Pole” is rooted in Oakland.

“Unlike this country that has a lot of cultural amnesia and can’t remember five minutes ago, let alone five years, Oakland is proud of its past,” Healey said. “Oakland is a place that pushes the conversation forward for the rest of the country, both artistically and politically. … I don’t think this project would be possible in any other city.”

Iturriaga agrees.

“The U.S. is not like Oakland,” Iturriaga said. He grew up disliking the United States, but upon arrival found North Oakland to be a place that appreciates difference and embraced radical thought.

“If you’re from North Oakland, you’re a major code switcher, able to navigate different spaces and have knowledge of different things,” he said. “That’s why this show has all these intersections, because the neighborhood itself is that. (The neighborhood has) created an environment where you have to adapt and hold onto your history at the same time.”

The second season of “The North Pole” is streaming on thenorthpoleshow.com

“The North Pole”: Second season screening and Q&A. 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10. Laney College, Laney Forum building, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Free. www.laney.edu