Sixty four years ago, on this day, October 9th, 1961, the Daily Mirror crusaded, about other animals besides the hairless murder apes
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 317ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that nature documentaries were having to start noticing there was trouble ahead.
What I think we can learn from this is that we knew what we were doing, by commission or omission. Oh well.
What happened next – it has gotten to the point where most of the mammalian biomass on this planet is hairless murder apes and their pets and livestock. We’re so screwed.
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:
October 9, 1979 – Hermann Flohn warns Irish of “possible consequences of a man-made warming”