The Day After Tomorrow (2004) analysis

Welcome back to part 3 of my disaster movie analyses! I apologize for the large amount of time since I previously uploaded, I've been preoccupied with a number of things (e.g., my family and I being out of town for a week, my classwork, etc.), but having finally completed the last of my assignments for my remaining college classes, expect my upload schedule to be significantly more consistent. With that being said, on to my analysis of:

One of the most critiqued facets of Roland Emmerich’s 2004 disaster epic The Day After Tomorrow has been, among other things, its perceived lack of scientific accuracy. While I agree with Andrew Weaver’s (a climatologist for the University of Victoria), assertion that a new ice age (like that which overtakes much of Earth’s northern hemisphere by the end of the film) as a result of climate change isn’t possible, I would argue the other calamities that befall various parts of the world throughout The Day After Tomorrow do a solid job of displaying to viewers the possible chaos that could be unleashed if humanity doesn’t start changing its ways (in the context of environmental impacts) in the very near future. This is helped by the fact that there have been multiple instances of weather anomalies occurring in unlikely places in the recent past, albeit not quite on the scale seen in the movie.

For instance, early in The Day After Tomorrow, multiple tornados befall Los Angeles, California, something unheard of in the state’s history. These twisters end up devastating the city to the point that when they finally dissipate, the municipality arguably looks more post-apocalyptic than anything. While the state of California has yet to experience a phenomenon like this in real life, it has recently been dealing with numerous wildfires, of which climate change has played a major factor through what Hayley Smith of the Los Angeles Times refers to as, “The recent heat dome that simmered over the Pacific Northwest.” According to Smith, “One study found that that deadly heat wave would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change adding a few extra degrees.”

As mentioned before, while it’s not very likely parts of the U.S. will become frozen wastelands due to climate change as seen in the film, it’s not completely out of the question for there to be colder-than-usual weather in normally warm parts of the world. This was best seen this past February when Texas, of all states, was subjected to a historic winter storm as a result of what an article by Earth.org refers to as, “A blast of cold air coming out of Canada”. This abnormal weather resulted in power failures throughout the state and the deaths of 210 people, according to a recent article from The New York Times. While arguably not anywhere near as bad as the New York death toll suggested in The Day After Tomorrow, the winter storm crisis in Texas and the more recent talk about a 'Code Red for humanity' are clear indicators that what befell Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal’s characters and their cohorts could very well happen to our world (albeit on a smaller scale and in different forms compared to what's displayed onscreen) if humanity doesn’t do more to combat climate change ASAP.