Earth Day: Pogo and our responsibility

While I was researching around to write the article on Earth Day published on EduINAF, I discovered with great pleasure, but without being too surprised, that Walt Kelly with his most beloved character, Pogo, also joined the initiative born in 1970 thanks to the United States Senator Gaylord Nelson and the activist Denis Hayes.

The poster, created for the first Earth Day, with the significant title of We have met the enemy and he is us, shows a disconsolate Pogo looking at the reader while he tries to clean the forest from waste paper.

The phrase is a variation on the more famous We have met the enemy and they are ours sent via a telegram from the US Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to his British counterpart William Henry Harrison after the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, one of the battles that took place during the War of 1812 between the United States of America and its allies on one side and the United Kingdom on the other.

Unlike the original phrase, which was intended to highlight the advantages obtained by the winners, Kelly's phrase wants to emphasize how we humans have generated the problem of pollution and environmental destruction.

The same concept was reiterated by Kelly in the April 22, 1971 strip in which Pogo and Porky-pine try to move among the garbage that has invaded the primeval forest:

Indeed, the strip's propensity to be close to environmental issues was still very present, both in subtle terms thanks to the setting in the Okefenokee swamp, and in quite explicit terms as in the case of Unpollutable Pogo, a story that I read in Italian some years ago.

In that case, Kelly tackles the problem of air pollution, making fun of creative solutions that stay away from the real problem using the Owl and the turtle Churchy, who propose to stop breathing!