Why does it take Hollywood to make movies like this? Money, of course; but I think it also takes the American character. The USA is the country that has been flying the highest and has the farthest to fall. It has enjoyed natural abundance for generations, yet more and more the American way of life is cut off from its basis as mines, oil wells, smelters and smoke have gone overseas. American optimism is under stress. To keep it up, along with its absurdly wasteful economy, in the face of the bad environmental news takes a distinctly American denial.
Visit the [;link url=http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.foxhome.com/dayaftertomorrow/]movie's Web site[/link] (now preserved only on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine) for a taste of this dynamic. For optimism, read the Production Notes section. The filmmakers burst with the excitement of moviemaking, and their pleasure in entertaining millions with a righteous message shines through. Opposing this is climate change, the biggest comeuppance mankind has ever faced.
Those are good drama. It's the moviemakers' denial that's off target. They admit the story is exaggerated—it really won't be this bad, they say, not this fast and not this inevitable. Enjoy the film, but think a little too, they say; plant trees to counteract the carbon dioxide you create. They don't know the half of it. The challenges of climate change include rising temperatures and damaging greenhouse emissions, of course, maybe even fast ice ages. But the biggest challenge in climate change is not the climate, but a civilization that is not resilient against disaster.
The filmmakers are looking the wrong way when they address the climate threat. Look at three statements they make on the Web site:
1. "In 2003, the hottest European summer on record caused more than 20,000 deaths. Extreme heat waves also caused more than 1500 deaths in India."
The summer was warm on average, but it was heat waves, not average temperatures, that killed so many. Individual disasters are not a sign of climate change. Considering the thermometer is less than 300 years old, we cannot tell how significant the summer of 2003 was in the long-term context. Without that we can't weigh other factors like the record high populations of Europe and India, their record high proportions of old people, and the adequacy of measures against prolonged heat. We know these heat waves were disasters, but we cannot know how much they owe to climate change versus human factors.
2. "Violent natural disasters, produced by the turbulent changes in weather patterns, are spiraling out of control—the largest number of U.S. tornadoes in 1 month was recorded in May 2003 with an average of 16 tornadoes a day during that month."
Scientist Patrick Michaels, writing in USA Today, disposed of this factoid: we record more tornadoes because weather radar keeps getting better. Severe tornadoes, as measured by the Fujita scale, are holding steady. Because the tornado statistic reflects human changes, not climate changes, this statement is hot air.
3. "Deadly floods are on the rise—in the last 30 years, more than half of the deaths associated with tropical cyclones have been caused by inland flooding."
But storms are not more severe today; instead hurricane forecasts have improved. People can evacuate the coast wherever hurricanes will land. Thus fewer people are dying in beach towns. The statement is actually a sign of progress (although inland flooding, being less predictable, is still killing people). "Deadly floods are on the rise" because more people are in the way of floods. This is inevitable as world population grows.
The most important thing we can do about climate change is not trying to reverse it—we don't really know how climate works, let alone how to control it. And even if we could achieve a drastic cutback in carbon emissions, the atmospheric disruption that already exists will last for centuries. We need, rather, to control ourselves and learn to live with climate change during its inevitable appearances. For that we need a more knowledgeable public, more sensible policymaking, and more people with degrees and expertise. One way or another, you can contribute.
But "The Day After Tomorrow" has something praiseworthy about it. While the Japanese movie monsters were mythic eruptions from the subconscious, at least we can say that the villian in "The Day After Tomorrow" is a real entity: Earth itself. Even if the film is permeated with exaggeration, denial and misplaced alarm, the actors in the drama—civilization and climate—are nevertheless the right characters. Learning more about Godzilla is learning trivia, but learning more about the climate system is gaining real knowledge.
