Thirty six years ago, on this day, July 23, 1987, Calvin blames his mother, and her generation…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Bill Watterson is a stone cold genius. The cartoon says so much about youthful exuberance and the joys of pointing the finger.
By 1987, yeah, lots of people knew already. You didn’t need to be a particular genius to understand that climate change was coming.
What I think we can learn from this is that proper humour about climate change is really hard to do. Some have managed it.
What happened next
Calvin & Hobbes kept publishing for a few more years but then went out on a high very sensibly. Showbusiness adage about leave them wanting more etc…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.