Forty seven years ago, on this day, April 21st, 1978, a cartoon with a long afterlife appeared.,
See Snopes.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there were fierce debates within America about what “paths” should be taken, nuclear, coal, solar, etc. And this is just a cracking cartoon that does a really useful piece of work in explaining what’s going on.
See also solar socialism, by Ronald Reagan as per this corking letter of August 20, 1981 in the New York Times.
What I think we can learn from this is that cartoons can really cut through.
What happened next
Solar continued to be starved of funding and attacked until despite the fossil lobby, it was mature enough to make nice fat profits.
see also “The Sun Betrayed” “Review here)
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.
Also on this day:
April 21, 1977 – Australian Parliament debate on Uranium – C02 build up mentioned
April 21, 1992 – President Bush again threatens to boycott Earth Summit
April 21, 1993 – Bill Clinton says US will tackle carbon emissions.