The Last of Us Had Clickers. We Got Candida

Zombies aren’t real. But fungal pandemics? Those are already happening — just without the clickers and CGI.

When The Last of Us hit screens, it gave us a fungal apocalypse with cinematic flair. Cordyceps evolved, jumped to humans, and society collapsed into a blood-soaked mess of spores and screams. Viewers binged the series, terrified — not by fiction, but by the eerie plausibility of it all. Could fungi really adapt to infect humans? Could climate change make it possible? Could that be our end?

Short answer: not like that. Long answer: maybe.

The Cordyceps that zombifies ants isn’t about to turn your neighbour into a mushroom-headed flesh puppet. Cordyceps is highly specialised. One strain infects a specific species of insect and can’t even hop to other insects, let alone humans. And even if it could, our immune systems and 37°C body temperatures have long been a fungal force field. Most fungi simply can't take the heat.

But that last point? That’s where reality starts catching up to horror fiction.

Because the planet is heating up. And fungi are adapting.

The Real Monsters Don’t Lurch — They Mutate

Fungi don’t need to spread through a TV-style contaminated pancake supply chain. They’re already in the air, the soil, the water, and — thanks to climate change — now in hospitals.

Enter Candida auris, a pathogen that thrives in higher temperatures and spreads from person to person. A fungus that emerged on multiple continents around the same time. A fungus that’s multi-drug resistant, deadly to the immunocompromised, and almost impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold in healthcare settings.

It’s not the only one. Species like Aspergillus fumigatus and Histoplasma are on the move, adapting, expanding their range, and making themselves at home in places they couldn’t survive in before. Climate modelling suggests A. fumigatus alone could expose an extra nine million people in Europe to infection by 2100. And this isn’t science fiction. This is published, peer-reviewed, already-in-progress reality.

Fire, Drought, Spores, Repeat

Fungal infections aren’t just hitching a ride on the heat. They’re spreading on the back of our climate chaos.

Droughts disturb dry spores. Wildfires create perfect fungal breeding grounds. And agriculture — the leading cause of deforestation and biodiversity loss — clears space not just for cows, but for pathogens. The more we destroy ecosystems, the more we expose ourselves to microbes we were never meant to meet.

2024 was the worst year ever recorded for fire-driven forest loss. Fires fuelled by global heating overtook logging and farming as the number one cause of tropical deforestation. From Brazil to the Congo to Siberia, forests are disappearing — and with them, the natural controls that kept fungal threats in check.

This isn’t a distant future problem. This is now. And no one’s ready.

The medical system is woefully unprepared for a fungal future. Why? Because antifungals don’t make money.

Big Pharma loves a profitable pandemic. COVID? Jackpot. But fungal infections? Not enough sick people to justify the investment — at least not yet. And because fungi are more biologically similar to humans than bacteria, developing treatments that don’t harm us in the process is harder. The result? Resistance is rising. Treatment options are falling. And still, barely anyone’s paying attention.

The World Health Organisation finally added fungal pathogens to its priority list in 2022. But only after years of mounting infections and mounting deaths. Less than 10% of fungal species have even been described. Let that sink in. We are walking blind into a fungal storm with next to no maps and almost no medicine.

Then There’s the Animal Industry

This isn't just about rising temperatures. This is also about raising animals — tens of billions of them.

The same industries torching forests and fuelling methane emissions are also breeding the perfect storm for fungal evolution. Antibiotic use in animal agriculture isn’t just fuelling bacterial resistance — it’s also wiping out the microbial balance that keeps fungi in check. The result? Opportunistic infections. In humans, in animals, in the soil, and in our hospitals.

And don’t expect any honesty from industry. The beef and dairy sectors have been caught red-handed funding disinformation campaigns to downplay their role in climate destruction. They’ve borrowed from the tobacco playbook: deny, distract, discredit. The beef industry knew as far back as the 80s that their emissions were a problem. Instead of reducing them, they paid researchers to tell the public otherwise.

Meanwhile, dairy giants are turning a blind eye to methane — one of the most powerful climate accelerants. Coffee chains like Dunkin’ scored zero on methane accountability. Starbucks admits dairy is its largest source of emissions, but won’t commit to phasing it out. And the medical profession? Still serving meat to cardiac patients.

Fungi might not be bursting from skulls, but the negligence is no less grotesque.

This Is Not About Zombies. It’s About Injustice.

The real horror isn’t spores. It’s systems. Systems that refuse to act unless there’s profit in it. Systems that protect industries over people. Systems that prioritise short-term convenience over long-term survival. Heat-resistant fungi are evolving faster than we are. And we’re still arguing over whether beef is really that bad for the planet. Hospitals are unprepared. Drug companies don’t care. Governments are stalling. And the industries fuelling the crisis are funding studies to convince you your diet doesn’t matter.

They’d rather let the world burn — and its fungal spores bloom — than acknowledge the obvious: the food system must change. Fast.

This Isn’t a Game. This Isn’t a Show.

There’s no cinematic showdown coming. No final boss battle. Just a slow, suffocating creep of neglected pathogens into places they’ve never been. Into lungs that used to be safe. Into wounds that used to heal. Into bodies with no immunity, no treatment, and no backup plan.

We don’t need a mutated Cordyceps to wipe us out. We’ve already created the conditions for something far scarier: a world where the climate is collapsing, the forests are gone, antibiotics don’t work, and fungi thrive in our absence. And that might be the deadliest script of all.