Movies like “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Interstellar” used to feel like far-off hypotheticals and remote possibilities for a future world, classed as science fiction – storytelling based on an imagined future.

Both films feature ecological collapse triggered by human action, with superstorms as humanity’s primary threat, and global systemic failure where entire ecosystems are irreversibly uninhabitable. 

They’re labelled sci-fi, but in 2026, are we really that far from those imagined futures?

The 2026-27 El Niño is predicted, with a confidence of greater than 90%, to become a super El Niño, with potential to become the strongest recorded climate event since 1950, according to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center. In El Niño weather cycles, the Pacific Ocean’s surface warms up to 37 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, pushing warm water into unusual oceanic current patterns. This generates abnormal weather patterns, including intense global heating and across regions of the world, heavy rainfall, flooding and intense drought. 

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In the hottest summer on record in the U.S., this year’s super El Niño resulted in a state of emergency in California and a record-breaking hurricane season in the Pacific. Hawaii has experienced the effects of three hurricanes in the last two months. The University of Chicago’s Climate Impact Lab forecasts that the super El Niño will cause nearly half a million heat-related deaths by February.

While La Niña (colder weather) and El Niño (hotter weather) are naturally-occurring climate cycles, pollution is the primary force driving El Niño frequency and intensity. Human-driven environmental degradation supercharges weather, causing more storms, worse storms and life-threatening high temperatures.

Around the world, action is being taken to prevent and mitigate effects of the climate crisis.

Canada issued 2026 warnings on areas of impending flood hazards and led community-based wildfire prevention programs.

The European Union placed tariffs on carbon-intensive imports including electricity, steel, and cement imported from countries with weaker environmental regulations. The EU also launched the Climate Insurance Alliance to increase private insurance coverage and implement automatic payouts when extreme heat or rainfall thresholds are exceeded.

Last year, Chile funded citizen-led climate councils to protect against droughts and wildfires and to implement national carbon caps, and Brazil launched a $125 billion fund to developing nations for keeping tropical forests intact. 

U.S. insurance companies, by contrast, have raised insurance premiums by nearly 50% since 2021, reduced coverage limits and simply stopped providing insurance to high-risk disaster zones. 

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Since 2025, U.S. climate policy has been reversed. It is now based on broad support for the fossil fuel industry, the single greatest cause of the climate crisis, and almost all federal regulation has been eliminated. Meanwhile, the current administration has put in place policies to dramatically increase the profits of the gas, oil and coal companies. They are making billions while people around the world are suffering. 

This U.S. prioritizes profit over people – lining the pockets of the “oiligarchs” at the expense of human lives, fails to sustain the future of humanity, and abridges U.S. residents’ fundamental human rights. Effects of the climate crisis threaten life, undermine liberty and erode personal security. All nations have a legal obligation to protect these rights.

Precedent includes:

• The International Court of Justice (2025) issued a unanimous historic advisory opinion, ruling that a nation’s climate action or inaction can breach international law.
• The European Court of Human Rights (2024-2025) ruled that governmental failures to reduce emissions violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
• The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (2025-2026) determined governments have a duty to implement comprehensive climate adaptation and mitigation measures. 
• The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2025) declared the climate crisis a human rights emergency.

The U.S. response to this global consensus?

• Rescinded the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, erasing the legal mechanism which formerly mandated federal oversight of carbon emissions.
• Withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, undermining global emissions-reduction.
• Invalidated state climate superfund laws, eliminating fossil fuel companies’ liability for climate damage and placing the financial burden back on taxpayers.
• Defunded international climate scientific bodies, weakening worldwide climate monitoring and early-warning forecasting.
• Removed clean energy subsidies, incentives for consumer electric vehicle use, and rebates for energy-efficient appliance installation, dismantling the mechanisms intended to transition the US to a low-carbon economy.
• Exploited public lands for fossil fuel production, removing environmental protections to enable oil, gas, and coal leasing rights in federally protected areas. 
• Reversed caps on power plant emissions, perpetuating the use of coal-and gas-fired utilities.

The U.S. is falling seriously behind international climate norms. 

If these policies continue, our children and grandchildren will be living in the sci-fi landscapes of “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Interstellar.” 

Rachel Hall Beecroft is communications director of Minnesota-based World Without Genocide.

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