Essay by Eric Worrall
A compelling work of fiction which a lot of people took way too seriously is “prescient” – has the Guardian finally said something we can agree with?
The Day After Tomorrow at 20: a strangely prescient ecological warning
The disaster flick is riddled with inaccuracies, cliches and gusts of machismo. But with its global climate catastrophe, it feels more relevant than ever
Lauren Collee Wed 5 Jun 2024 01.00 AEST
In the winter of 2013, a breakdown in the polar vortex allowed freezing cold air to escape southwards towards the North American continent. As ice storms, tornadoes and blizzards swept across the US, Donald Trump tweeted. “I’m in Los Angeles and it’s freezing,” he wrote. “Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”
…
The film, 2004’s summer box office hit, was lampooned by critics and scientists alike. Members of an internet chatroom allegedly paid the paleoclimatologist William Hyde $100 to see it. “This movie is to climate science what Frankenstein is to heart surgery,” he concluded.
Nevertheless, a series of studies showed that the film did sway public opinion about the climate crisis. Twenty years after its release, it remains a unique specimen: a climate disaster blockbuster that adheres to all the tenets of the genre, while also explicitly attributing its carnage to the greenhouse effect.
…
Like every disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow is riddled with inaccuracies, cliches and strange displays of machismo (in one scene, Gyllenhaal battles wolves on a frozen ghost ship). But, if anything, the film’s absurdity feels closer to our reality in 2024 than it did in 2004. After all, we live in the age of climate surrealism – it is generally understood that things are going to get weirder as they get worse. Today is the day after tomorrow, we mutter to ourselves, as we read about ancient anthrax-infested reindeer carcasses defrosting in the Arctic Circle.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/jun/05/the-day-after-tomorrow-20-year-anniversary-where-to-watch-streaming
I really enjoyed “The Day After Tomorrow” when it first came out, and still watch it occasionally. It has a racy plot, interesting characters, sacrifice, heroism and some smoking hot intelligent women.
I’m a big fan of actor Denis Quaid, who played the science hero. Quaid’s outspoken support for President Trump is just icing on the cake.
But watching “The Day After Tomorrow”, you really have to put your scientific skepticism on hold.
The movie is loosely based on the Younger Dryas, an abrupt return to ice age conditions which occurred 13,000 years ago, but despite repeated attempts to claim we’re on track for a repeat of that event, there is very little evidence anything like that could happen again in the foreseeable future.
Even worse for “The Day After Tomorrow” believers, the Younger Dryas meltwater influx theory, which was the cause of the abrupt cooling in the movie, appears to have fallen out of favour.
Evaluating the link between the sulfur-rich Laacher See volcanic eruption and the Younger Dryas climate anomaly
James U. L. Baldini,Richard J. Brown,and Natasha Mawdsley
Abstract
The Younger Dryas is considered the archetypal millennial-scale climate change event, and identifying its cause is fundamental for thoroughly understanding climate systematics during deglaciations. However, the mechanisms responsible for its initiation remain elusive, and both of the most researched triggers (a meltwater pulse or a bolide impact) are controversial. Here, we consider the problem from a different perspective and explore a hypothesis that Younger Dryas climate shifts were catalysed by the unusually sulfur-rich 12.880 ± 0.040 ka BP eruption of the Laacher See volcano (Germany). We use the most recent chronology for the GISP2 ice core ion dataset from the Greenland ice sheet to identify a large volcanic sulfur spike coincident with both the Laacher See eruption and the onset of Younger Dryas-related cooling in Greenland (i.e. the most recent abrupt Greenland millennial-scale cooling event, the Greenland Stadial 1, GS-1). Previously published lake sediment and stalagmite records confirm that the eruption’s timing was indistinguishable from the onset of cooling across the North Atlantic but that it preceded westerly wind repositioning over central Europe by ∼ 200 years. We suggest that the initial short-lived volcanic sulfate aerosol cooling was amplified by ocean circulation shifts and/or sea ice expansion, gradually cooling the North Atlantic region and incrementally shifting the midlatitude westerlies to the south. The aerosol-related cooling probably only lasted 1–3 years, and the majority of Younger Dryas-related cooling may have been due to the sea-ice–ocean circulation positive feedback, which was particularly effective during the intermediate ice volume conditions characteristic of ∼ 13 ka BP. We conclude that the large and sulfur-rich Laacher See eruption should be considered a viable trigger for the Younger Dryas. However, future studies should prioritise climate modelling of high-latitude volcanism during deglacial boundary conditions in order to test the hypothesis proposed here.
Read more: https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/14/969/2018/
“The Day After Tomorrow” was a great movie, a climate disaster blockbuster which even skeptics can enjoy. But the only thing prescient about “The Day After Tomorrow” is how a bunch of greens getting excited about a work of fiction when the movie was first released foreshadowed today’s mainstream climate activism.
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Guardian ‘age of climate surrealism’. Accidentally true. Alarmists are surreal.
Some examples of very official ‘climate science’ surreal alarms:
Taking a 20 year old climate disaster movie and saying it might be coming true is silly. Sillier, The Day after Tomorrow was about global colding, not global warming. Apparently an overlooked alarming detail.
Out driving my truck this evening- to a local lake- mostly to get away from “the little woman” for a few hours- turned on NPR, and heard one story after another about the climate emergency. Mostly by people who sound not much more than 30.
Driving a truck probably means that you are a member of the great unwashed who don’t understand; don’t defer to the place people and inteligencia; ignore the authority of the UN. The sotto voce declaring of the idiocy of ‘those people’ is quite alarming as if the idea of peasantry and their inherent ignorance is still abroad and taken as read. Little is ascribed to the fact that such people today are feeling the pips squeak in their economic life and where normally they would find life hard anyway now, under the regime of the soothsayer, it is becoming impossible. The ones who are likely to voice the unvarnished truth about their existences now declared stupid and blind, at the whim of grand poobahs comfortably remunerated to the extent that price fluctuation has no meaning, ones who inherit the urge to march as a rites of passage CV entry, are wedded to being tangential at the level of DNA. If it wasn’t climate they would find another cause like Groucho Marx principles.But in the end it is the truck drivers of the world who feel the brunt of lively imaginations and the current phase of global Puritanism. Sentiency has become astrological, knowing everything, being internet capable affirms your rightness.This is a world disorder of peasantry versus the nobility, it never went away the rightness of status never is with us, -‘let them burn payslips’, says the updated Marie Antoinette.
Time to invest in pitchforks. I think there’ll be a huge increase in demand for them. 🙂
If you’re trying to get away from “the little woman” why on Earth would you listen to NPR?? Isn’t that the same thing? 😉
It’s about the only channel I can get. Actually, after listening to their climate idiocy, they had a folk singer for a few hours. That was good.
I just stuck my head out the window as I have for 74 years. I can’t tell any climate difference from 1950. What am I missing?
You just labeled yourself a climate change heretic, hereby excommunicated from the UNFCCC church of climate change. Even Pope Francis is a member.
Hot damn! The only other thing I’ve won in my life is a bucket of Triggers Horse Turds.
Oh, no- now we can’t get into heaven! Sorry, Jesus, I’ll change my view- yes, there is a climate emergency. I repent. I’ll now say 10 Hail Mary’s and 10 Our Fathers. Please forgive me!
There’s no natural gas up in heaven. The molecules are too far apart there.
claysanborn, You have the advantage of age over me.
I can only vouch for half a century of personal experience in Central England.
There are somewhat fewer winters where people might take their children sledging in the occasional snowfall. That’s it.
Did you open your eyes? They said “just look out your window”, no sticking required.
They could have added, “then believe us, not yer own stinkin’ eyes”
Another 74 year old! I notice the climate has gotten a bit better here in normally cold and damp Wokeachusetts.
I did not realize we are the same age.
And I have a good memory. I remember the JFK inauguration like yesterday.
You are missing the fact that kids tongues no longer get stuck on metal poles as often as they once did, thereby robbing the children of their traditional heritage of daring each other to do so.
It’s a lesser known effect of global warming, but a serious result affecting childhood just the same.
In the UK we have just been told by the Met Office that despite the fact we might feel that May was cold and wet, it was the warmest on record.
What our senses tell us we must ignore.
I’ve only seen the movie once, and that was to fairly comment on the discussion it was supposed to generate. It didn’t, and that was fine by me.
Air coming down from the stratosphere not having time to heat up!? Did the “science advisor” know how a diesel engine works? Heh – the URL I found for him is stale.
https://wermenh.com/2016.html
Good point Ric, I should have mentioned that – PV = nRT, or in this case T = PV / nR. I didn’t know they had a science advisor…
Hollywood doesn’t do math. Hollywood science is Jurassic Park.
Next you will say light sabers cannot physically clash. Well, in Star Wars they sure did—saw it with my own eyes.
Hollywood “history” doesn’t do much better.
Sometimes they’ve made an honest effort within the limits of the medium.
“Tora, Tora, Tora” about December 7th, 1941 was good. Tried to be “historical”. But then they made “Pearl Harbor”.
Watching “Midway” then “Tora, Tora, Tora” is one of the best things to do. I recommend John Wayne’s “In Harms Way” as a dessert.
Band of Brothers- best WWII movie. (series)
Patton was similar.
Karl Malden playing Omar Bradley, had a line when Patton arrived in North Africa, after the Kasserine Pass debacle.
Paraphrasing: “Their tanks (the Germans) were diesel, ours are gas. So when ours got hit, they went up in flames.”
The Real General Bradley was the military advisor for the film. But apparently he didn’t know that all German production tanks were gasoline powered. All of them. Or he knew, but didn’t say anything, or they ignored him. It was disappointing for a supposedly historically based film.
Ha – The Jurassic Park book was written by one of climate skepticism’s strongest advocates. Sadly he died way too young from cancer. The campus communists hated him, because even leftist universities kept inviting I’m to speak.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/08/20-years-on-jurassic-park-author-michael-crichton-is-still-right-about-global-warming/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/29/state-of-fear-by-michael-crichton-could-be-the-1984-of-climate-alarmism/
If you are looking for a compelling story about corporate greed and an out of control AI which has begun the process of destroying all life on Earth, Crichton’s book Prey is worth a look.
Thanks for mentioning “State of Fear,” Eric. I read it from a sci-fi perspective not long after it came out and thought it was entertaining, I’ve always liked Crichton’s books. But at the time, it seemed somewhat far-fetched on the conspiracy theory aspect. Then I really got into the whole subject, the technology of “carbon capture” and the science (or lack thereof) of global warming. I re-read the book and was amazed how on target it was.
I might read it again…
Light Sabers use destructive interference..
Nah, they use magic. Anything physical which is that hot would be radiating enough ultraviolet so Jedi would need seeing eye dogs after the first few battles.
I haven’t been able to sit through more than a few minutes of it.
The whole movie was derived from a SciFi book, The Coming Global Superstorm, a 1999 book by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. Since they had that, they did not need anything more.
Funny how in the Museum of Natural History they observed a mammoth that was frozen with food still in its mouth from 10,000 years prior.
I am sure by reading further comments below that many others point out the many, many fallacies of the movie.
Still a good movie as movies go. Just not good science.
I noticed they didn’t put a date in the title like “2012” did.
“1984” was more prescient.(“Fahrenheit 451” could have been but he never envisioned things like the Internet and Google Search.)
Well, Guy’s wife wanted that 4th screen so she could fully immerse with the “family.”
The takeaway, warp drive can disrupt the time/space continuum.
(I learned that in a Star Trek TNG episode. From now on I won’t drive my Honda at warp speed!)
I remember that episode. There were special markers put out in space as warnings that space was distorted in those areas.
I really rolled my eyes at that episode.
Then they said they’d limit all starships to Warp 6 to minimize the damage.
Some episodes later, that rule was forgotten. Thankfully.
I noticed that too.
The closest they they came was say that the Enterprise had permission to exceed the restrictions for a mission. (I forget if was in an episode or a movie.)
After that, forgotten.
A PS.
I could look it up, but in The Captains’ Log of behind the scenes stuff, they admitted that the reason that episode was written was to make people more amenable to accepting the idea than chlorinated fluorocarbons might be be damaging the ozone layer!
I kid you not!
(Al Gore was going on about the Ozone “Hole” at the time. He hadn’t switched to CO2 yet and CAGW yet.)
“Feels.” You missed it. The keyword in the article is “feels.”
You can debate facts but you can’t debate author Lauren Collee feelings.
“you can’t debate author Lauren Collee feelings”
Yes, it’s OK as long as she did it with consenting adults !!
Here’s a thought.
Should someone else’s “feelings” rule your life? Be able to make laws based on “feelings” alone?
What if it was MY “feelings” that ruled?
What if it was (whoever is reading this’s) “feelings” that ruled?
How could rule by “feelings” ever be just?
Ask Anne Boleyn or Marie Antionette (or even Trump?).
I didn’t disagree with her :-). I think TDAT is prescient as well: “… But the only thing prescient about “The Day After Tomorrow” is how a bunch of greens getting excited about a work of fiction when the movie was first released foreshadowed today’s mainstream climate activism.”
You could put the Younger Dryas on steroids and meth at the same time … and you still wouldn’t get The Day After Tomorrow.
Younger Dryas was natural, global warming is caused by people, that makes a million gazillion times worser.
I do wish that these people wouldn’t abuse the word “catalysed” so flippantly.
They should stick to words that Homer Simpson would approve of, like “embiggen”. That allows them to encompass both Donald Trump and water vapour feedback as they feel the need.
Or Joe Biden’s single word description of America: “ASUFUTIMAEHAEHFUTBW”.
The Machine Stops ( E M Forster) is a more likely scenario, a machine Ai ? Controls the lives of a civilisation living underground who are housed, fed serviced by the Machine and contact each other by viewing screens
the machine starts to have errors and finally stops with the inhabitants unable to do anything for themselves. Luckily some of earth’s inhabitants live above ground and have continued to look after themselves
The only thing worth seeing there was Emmy Rossum. The film itself was just horribly stupid.
Well, i guess you can push suspended disbelief only so far. I kinda liked the movie for what it was, a bit of survival spirit, personal life and death back and forth. It is not supposed to mean anything else. Unless you take it that way. And yes, then Climate change/disaster fills in the blanks. But you are supposed to enjoy the movie, not get alarmed by it. Like an earthquake film. Scary but enjoyable. And in fact, a tad closer to reality. But hey, man made Climate Change, our original sin apparently is hard to beat and since the 1960s widespread. Im hoping for the turn back to reality but im not so sure it will happen anytime soon..
I agree with you, ballynally. The silly science fiction aside, it was still a fun disaster movie. I think the reason it’s likeable is the movie didn’t preach. It was more interested in cool special effects mixed in with a little romance and action movie heroism. The more recent disaster movies are unwatchable becuase they replace character arcs with polemic exposition.
“Climate surrealism”: the planet getting hot enough to melt pocket watches.
CAGW meets Salvatore Dali. LOL!
“a breakdown in the polar vortex allowed freezing cold air to escape southwards towards the North American continent”
OMG!
It happens just about every year somewhere. This year China got the brunt of the cold arctic weather.
Has anyone noticed that many of the AGW-scammers are pivoting to “climate change causes cooling” ?
Are they just “covering all bases” or do they suspect in the back of their tiny little minds that a cooling period is coming.
Just covering all bases.
I stubbed my toe last night walking in the dark on my way to pee. I blame AGW, and so does the climate cult.
That’s the reason it went from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” to “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!”
Well it is simple physics and the debate is over,
It goes something like this:
The only way energy exits planet Earth is by radiation. A fact and simple physics.
Carbon dioxide is a radiative gas. A fact and also simple physics.
Ergo, the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more energy is radiated to space.
The effect is global, hence Global Cooling.
I told you – the debate is over.
What do I win?
And everyone gets rescued by Chinook helicopters! Oh the irony.
“some smoking hot intelligent women” dear oh dear! You can see why people accuse us of being knuckle dragging apes!
Male apes have feelings too, and hormones. Anyway, it’s the people doing the casting who are to blame. For example, the Geena Davis bikini scene in the better science fiction movie “Earth Girls are Easy. Here’s the clean view. I confess to my knuckles dragging a bit:
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW – some comments on the movie
Even Rahmstorf of German PIK comnented about.
The Day After Tomorrow movie I thought was more comedy than supposed real life. Many of the strategies portrayed about staying warm in that sudden frigid cold were simply nonsense.
The Day After movie about the aftermath of nuclear war (much lesser known movie) also had many false strategies. But HEY!!! They are movies and movies are made to entertain us, or they once were.
Are we really discussing fairy tales?
Isn’t that what global warming has always been?
That’s homophobic
If you are working for the Guardian then greater absurdity may well be getting closer to your reality.
I still like the idea that the sudden Younger Dryas never happened.
Instead the Earth passed through a band of radiation that mucked up all the carbon dating. What we think we are seeing as the Younger Dryas is just the Greater Dryas, misidentified.
That’s why it pops up and goes again so quickly in the reconstructed records.
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/14/969/2018/
I’m curious about the band of radiation hypothesis. Do you have a reference for that?
EDIT: I just deleted most of my previous comment because I realized I was conflating the paper with the Wiki entry for the Laacher See.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laacher_See
Both excellent reading and I’d never thought about volcanoes blasting out radiocarbon dead magma having an effect on dating.
I’ve looked and I’m sorry. Can’t find a reference.
Maybe it’s just something I came up with.
It’s certainly plausible. Even if, with n= 0 or at most 1, it cannot claim to be probable.
Actually, it is based on a novel by Whitley Strieber. This is the same author of the book “Communion” in which he claimed to have been abducted and probed by aliens. ‘Nuff said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitley_Strieber