First, the cartoon.
The cartoonist is Banx, who for my money is one of the best in the UK. His work appears in (at least) the Financial Times and Private Eye (these two are indispensable for understanding what is going on in the UK, as is the Morning Star. None of the three should be read on their own as anything approaching authoritative: you need to triangulate and go well beyond. But they all three are, imo, “necessary but not sufficient.” Here’s a link to the subscribe page for Private Eye.. And here’s a link to a blog about another piece appearing in the same issue.
Banx’s cartoon of a man visiting a psychiatrist and asking for a pill to forget the future, appearing some 20 years ago, nails the Anthropocene. What he does looks really easy. Try it yourself, see how far you get.
Anyhoo, you should subscribe to Private Eye, or (better yet) get your favourite mother-in-law to buy you a gift subscription.
Onto the cartoon itself, the Treaty of Westphalia (TOW) and the aggravating experience of reading a bunch of International Relations Masters’ thesis (few of which even namechecked it).
The TOW ended the Thirty Year War (for fun descriptions of that episode of Western civilisation, see Voltaire’s Candide). The basics of it are is that states agree to respect borders and keep their noses out of each other’s “internal affairs.”
I know, I know, don’t laugh, but it was kinda sort a big deal and kinda sort sometimes taken kinda sorta seriously for a long time. And it’s a crucial stumbling block when it comes to environmental issues (‘transboundary pollution’ as acid-rain etc used to be called). All sorts of bilateral and multilateral shenanigans apply. Thesis (hopefully better than the ones I was reading) have been written. Books written, careers built. The usual shit academics do.
Banx’s cartoon reminds us that ANIMALS AND ECOSYSTEMS CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES as far as the humans and the TOW are concerned. If the animals could speak most of it would be swear words about the hairless apes with opposable thumbs and a few millimetres of prefrontal cerebral cortex that isn’t as nearly in charge of their amygdalas and hindbrains as they like to tell themselves (homo “sapiens” my fat arse).
They would have liked their country back. Instead its been razed, burned, melted.
UPDATE September 25 2024
The aforementioned favourite Mother-in-Law had been reading “A History of the World in 47 Borders” by Jonn Elledge and kindly sent this photo of a relevant page.
marchudson.net 
Marc, I am appalled at the lack of concern by both governments and most of the public,, at the degradation of our environment. But why do today what WE can leave until tomorrow?
GROWTH in all it’s forms is ensuring climate destruction is increasing, not declining and sadly I see no real attempt to correct the situation!! No, I am not really surprised, just saddened.