In Beyond the Time Barrier, the year 2024 is depicted as a bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape following a global catastrophe known as the "Great Plague" of 1971. The remnants of high society reside in an underground city called the Citadel, while the surface is inhabited by violent, irradiated mutants. The film envisions an Earth that has been functionally destroyed by atomic testing, which thinned the ionosphere and allowed lethal cosmic radiation to saturate the planet, leading to universal human sterility and deafness among the survivors.

The societal dynamics within the Citadel reflect a desperate, stagnant technocracy. Because the population is unable to reproduce, the civilization is literally dying out, focusing its remaining resources on sustaining a sterile, clinical environment rather than progress. This creates a sharp class divide between the "civilized" telepathic elite underground and the "scapegoated" mutants on the surface, illustrating a world where environmental collapse has led to the total abandonment of the Earth's surface and the loss of spoken language in favor of psychic intuition.

From a predictive standpoint, the film's 2024 serves as a cautionary tale regarding atmospheric degradation. While the specific mechanism—nuclear testing causing a hole in the sky—differs from modern climate science, the concept of a global respiratory and reproductive crisis mirrors contemporary anxieties about environmental toxins. Interestingly, the film's depiction of a supersonic research pilot reaching the future via a "time slip" during high-speed flight reflects 1960s fascinations with the Space Race, though the actual 2024 has seen a pivot toward digital connectivity over the physical time-dilation effects of Mach-speed travel.