Of course, the 10:10 Splattergate video is only one in a series of horrible PR blunders made by the Greens. Read on for commentary and to see yet another shocking example of imagery about killing children in the name of climate change.
From Dr. Benny Peiser’s CCNet mailing, a collection of editorials regarding the 10:10 video:
Businesses Pull Out Of Climate Campaign After Green PR Disaster
Businesses have begun to distance themselves from the carbon-cutting campaign 10:10 over a promotional film the organisation premiered last week that depicts schoolchildren, office workers and celebrities being blown up for not taking action on climate change. Sony UK and Kyocera Mita, two corporate partners of the 10:10 campaign, both condemned the short film ‘No Pressure’, directed by Richard Curtis, today, for being “tasteless” and “shocking”. – GreenWise Business, 5 October 2010
If the goal [of the film] had been to convince people that environmental campaigners have lost their minds and to provide red meat (literally) to shock radio hosts and pundits fighting curbs on greenhouse gases, it worked like a charm. Of course the goal might have been buzz more than efficacy. Too often these days, that’s the online norm. They succeeded on that front. I, among many others, am forced to write about it. Congratulations. –Andrew C Revkin, The New York Times, 4 October 2010
As often as 10:10 tried to pull the film off YouTube, their critics re-posted it. This, at least, proves what a cataclysmic misjudgement Curtis had made. When you try to satirise the critics of your campaign, and it turns out that those very critics embrace your film as demonstrating exactly what they find unbearable about the climate-obsessed eco-lobby, then you know that you have kicked the ball into your own net. Unfortunately, just as a star footballer who scores a spectacular own goal must now endure his foolishness being viewed endlessly on the internet, so Richard Curtis will have this hanging round his neck, like a stinking fish, for as long as he is successful enough to be worth mocking. –Dominic Lawson, The Independent, 5 October 2010
People who believe that humanity is heading towards destruction as a consequence of its misdeeds often take quiet pleasure in imagining the bloodshed to come. That, at least, is my explanation for Richard Curtis’s decision to make a short film for the 10:10 pressure group of climate change fanatics in which he depicted – with huge relish – children being blown to pieces. It’s important to grasp the quasi-religious nature of the 10:10 pressure group. Irrespective of where you stand on AGW, it’s clear that its pernickety commandments, most of them involving energy-saving lightbulbs, won’t make any difference to the fate of the planet. But they do have a sacred significance, as do the deaths in the Curtis snuff movie. There’s nothing like the prospect of the ritual slaughter of children to excite prophecy believers, in my experience. –Damian Thompson, The Daily Telegraph, 4 October 2010
The young don’t need religion, as the environment gives them all the certainty they need. Greenery, as a secular religion, has come to dominate not just the curriculum, but the imagination. It’s Blue Peter‘s recycled bottle tops on a grand scale: lessons on the dangers of global warming, projects on endangered species, litter-picking exercises. As any parent will testify, pester power is as often employed these days to guilt Dad into separating out the recyclables as to beg for the latest Transformer. Colleagues who have suffered their children’s eco-scorn assure me that no member of the Inquisition was ever so ruthless, ever so certain of his faith, as their tiny Torquemadas. –Robert Colvile, The Times, 6 October 2010
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Meanwhile, the last remaining sponsor of the 10:10 Splattergate video, the cell phone provider “O2” seems to be softening a bit.
Richard North has the story at the EU Referendum
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A bunch of people have been sending me this, and since it is getting wide play elsewhere, I suppose I’ll have to bring it up here. Last year, the Cannes film festival embraced this mentally repulsive child exploiting ugliness:
Source: http://www.act-responsible.org/ACT/ACTINCANNES/THEEXPO2009.htm
Act responsible?
Here’s the image from the upper right:
Source: http://www.act-responsible.org/ACT/ACTINCANNES/THE-EXPO/affiche.pdf
What sort of idiots would put their logo on something like this? The ones at the bottom apparently.
UPDATE: Apparently there are a few people, still so very dense, that this sort of thing does not phase their beliefs:
Here is where you can submit a comment:
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/contact
David A. Evans says:
October 7, 2010 at 4:28 am
Thank you very much David. Please keep up the pressure. I’m certainly not doing any business with Sony in the near future if I can help it…
Yesterday evening, at our Town Council meeting, we were invited (no pressure!) to attend the local opening of a 10:10 campaign. I blew up (!?) and advised my fellow councillors that on no account should we have anything to do with this fascist bunch of disgusting totalitarians who advocate the murder of children who don’t agree with them. I also suggested that if they haven’t yet seen the video, they’re lucky!
Where I began when my children were smaller was on the idea that “nature is fragile”.
The younger grades are guilted into believing that their very presence on the planet is harmful, because of the “fragility” of nature.
Yes, individual discrete pieces of nature ARE fragile–a leaf, an ant, a twig.
But the totality of nature is relentless, rather than “fragile”, and I took opportunities in the natural world to point that out.
The sidewalk heaved by tree roots–the concrete makes you bleed if you fall on it, doesn’t it? But look at how the tree has broken it! Is the tree “fragile”? it drops its leaves each year, and next year they grow more, because look, the tree is bigger, isn’t it?
Easy to squash one bug, and there is a life gone forever. But look at that tree eaten and killed by bugs. That tree is dying, and other parts of nature ate it. The bugs have to live too, don’t they? And look, a new tree is sprouting, right there.
I wonder if the fragility meme takes root because a bug or a blossom is so immediate to a child?
Storms are huge teachers of the fallacy of “fragility”.
I guess that’s why children are told that the fact that they and their house exist, with a car in the driveway, is what causes the storms, and kilss the uprooted tree, and leaves the birds and the bugs “homeless”.
A constant battle, but necessary as part of child rearing–in nearly every subject.
I guess what I’m trying to express, quite badly, is that discrete examples are used to illustrate “facts” about the whole interlocking system that simply aren’t true.
I also imagine that this was part of the reason for the dumbing down of education via the “self esteem” model. How one feels is more imprtant that what one accomplishes, and whether it is objectively true or not.
It explained the humor of Josh’s cartoon for me–“1. Wake Up. 2. Get Dressed. 3. Make Movie.”–in giving me a fantasy glimpse of little Franny as a child getting her esteem stroked instead of her brain and conscience exercised.
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Franny, you clever girl?”
“I’m going to be creative, because I am really good at that, and I will make a million dollars making movies and posters because I am very smart and creative and everyone will do what I say because I’m so smart and I make the best posters in class!”
So little of what is called education these days actually teaches the subject at hand–one of mine had a “team weather project” in middle school that revolved around writing, performing and editing a make-believe weather broadcast. The entire grade rubric was on teamwork and production values, and taught them much more about using video editing software than the subject the mini movie was upposedly teaching.
A few points both on and off topic.
As far as the two fingered salute goes, I’m afraid the link to either Crecy or Agingcourt (or longbowmen/archers in general) is something of an urban myth. Wikipaedia (I know they miss the a out, but I can’t bring myself to do it) has a fair page on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign although I’m sure I’ve seen the urban myth status confirmed elsewhere (as well as getting a mention on QI).
The batle of Hastings was a [snip] before it even started as Harold Godwinson (king) had already taken his ‘elite’ troops (carls) on a forced march of over a hundred miles from London to Stamford Bridge gathering the fyrd along the way, defeated Harald Hardrada and his viking army (along with Harold’s brother Tostig Godwinson), followed swiftly by a forced march back through London and on to Hastings, so the preparation was poor, the army depleted and the best troops already exhausted and Guilleme the Bastard (William the Conqueror to you and me) took full advantage.
Following their victory the Norman’s camped at Hastings for 2 weeks expecting the English to submit, during which time a new king was crowned, and had the norther English earls not headed home (as the common view was that the battle was nothing to do with them) it is quite conceivable that the English could have repelled the subsequent advance on London, as the Norman army was decimated by dysentery (mitigated by some reinforcements from over the Channel).
@ur momisugly Lucy Skywalker http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-3-and-4/subjects/key-stage-4/science/index.aspx takes you to the UK national curriculum website (I’ve linked to the Key Stage 4 science page, which is GCSE level examined at the age of 16). Having recently moved back out of teaching I don’t have other links to hand but will try to dig some out if you’re interested (www.aqa.org.uk is probably not a bad place to start, although their website was obviously put together by a complete idiot). From experience, throughout secondary level science in the UK the message of global warming/catastrophic climate change is endemic throughout the curriculum and at GCSE level it is far more about the sociopolitical effects than it is about the science – in my years of teaching I didn’t come across a single science teacher who could explain/understood any of the supposed mechanisms involved other than to parrot “it’s the greenhouse effect”, “carbon dioxide allows some IR radiation in, but prevents it leaving the atmosphere again” etc…
I’ve watched the “No Pressure” mini-film three times and I’ll confess, I can’t see the humour at all. The reaction of the other children in the first section was just shock and dismay, as well they might- “Two of my classmates were just blown to smithereens – am I next?”
Woe betide any teacher at my daughter’s school showing this one.
The more insidious pressure placed upon children learning science is that the AGW proposition must be learned as fact for their Science GCSEs. No scepticism allowed.
Steve R says:
October 6, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Neo-paganistic Earth-worshipers. The new state-sanctioned religion.
That is the disguise, but behind….just “follow the money”
EUreferendum have received a letter from O2 saying they are withdrawing support for 10:10
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/has-o2-withdrawn.html
At least the “You’re killing the children” poster makes sense. That’s not something I would want my name associated with them, but at least I understand the message and why they would do something like. That’s what you expect from shock and awe tactics.
When I first heard about the 10:10 video, I expected it to depict blowing up refineries, fat-cat CEOs, or other “bad guys”. That would also fit with the alarmist mindset. However, I was shocked at the fact that disagreeing with them was considered enough to skip the reason, skip the convincing, and go straight to the naughty-list.
[snip . . repeat of posting]
I got a response from O2 which follows.
To which I have responded.
DaveE.
Latest news from eureferendum
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/has-o2-withdrawn.html
DaveE.
O2 is not about to abandon the 10:10 film. It is part of their “retch out and touch someone” campaign.
It seems there is some confusion inside O2, now Richard has had another letter – see EUReferendum.blogspot.com
@MackemX
I will take issue with you on the urban myth status of the V sign and its relationship to the archers of the 100 Years’ War. In Juliet Barker’s excellent ‘Agincourt’ she states that in his pre-battle speech ‘Henry told them that the French would cut off two fingers from the right hand of every English archer, so that they could never draw a longbow again.’ She describes his statement as a ‘pardonable untruth’ since, of course, death was the normal fate of any captured common archer. Whether this is the origin we’ll never know. Oh, but I do agree strongly with your views on how Harold could have won, which is what I meant when I said he should have bided his time.