Sixty two years ago, on this day, November 23, 1961, a British film about the earth getting hotter and hotter had its Danish premiere
1961 Launch of The Day the Earth Caught Fire (in Denmark)
Trailer –
Full movie here!
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 317ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in the mid 1950s somebody had spotted that senior US politician Estes Kefauver had spoken of the perceived danger that multiple nuclear explosions could tip the earth off its balance and thought “that’s a good idea for a science fiction story.” It was filmed and released and is perhaps the first is part of the whole examples of climate anxiety films.
What we can learn from this is the film is an entirely enjoyable eco thriller before the name and would make an excellent starting point for a green group that was trying to attract people. Maybe.
What happened next
By the late 1960s people were beginning to talk about carbon dioxide build-up as The Threat.
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.
