Posted on November 1, 2010

by

Daniel Clark

A four-minute promotional film called "No Pressure" by a British environmentalist group called "The 10:10 Foundation" has generated outrage among conservatives and other non-deranged people, mostly because of the shocking depravity it required of everyone involved in it. In a way, though, most of its critics have missed the point entirely.

The first of the film's four sketches is set in a schoolroom, where the teacher asks the children to participate in the "10:10 Project," by which they would reduce their CO2 emissions by 10 percent a year for 10 years. Most of the kids eagerly raise their hands to volunteer. Then, she asks who is not interested in taking part, and two children respond.

"It's absolutely fine," she assures them. "It's your choice." Before dismissing the class, however, she presses a red button on a black box, and the two uncooperative kids explode, drenching their shocked classmates with blood, and other, indiscernible bits of humanity. The teacher then gives the remaining children their homework assignment, at which time she delivers the punch line, "except for Philip and Tracy, of course." (Get it? They're dead! Tee-hee.)

This sketch is followed by a repeat of the same scenario in an office setting, with the boss blowing up three employees, whose spattered co-workers moan in horror. Next, several members of the British soccer team Tottenham Hotspur blow up former player David Ginola, for worrying that the 10:10 initiative will divert their focus from their game. Finally, actress Gillian Anderson, who has been doing a voiceover for the film, says she doesn't feel she needs to do any more to contribute to the cause, and is therefore blown to bits, many of which stream down the windows of the recording booth.

Without knowing first-hand how it really looks when the human body is blown up from within, it's impossible to say whether the effects are realistic, but they are certainly intended to be. These could not have been comical explosions, reminiscent of the Monty Python penguin-on-top-of-the-telly sketch, because that would not have provided the greenies with enough of a catharsis. In order for the "joke" to feel right to them, they needed to portray nothing short of a graphic, total annihilation of the nonbelievers.

And yet, those people are not the ones targeted by this film. The environmental heretics cannot be the intended recipients of the message, because the characters representing them are obliterated without any warning. Instead, the film is meant to serve notice to those already committed greenies who might be starting to waver.

In those first two sketches, the obedient schoolchildren and employees are not in on the gag. Rather than smirking along with the dictatorial button-pressers, they are shocked and horrified by what has happened. Most importantly, they understand that they, too, are subject to the whims of their homicidal authority figures.

Most critics of "No Pressure" mistakenly believe that its aim is to persuade, and conclude that it has failed miserably. To the contrary, the point is to warn those within the movement against having second thoughts, and it may actually prove successful in that regard. The message from the 10:10 Foundation is simply this: Don't you dare turn your backs on us now. Once you joined the green movement, you were in it for life. Try to leave now, at the risk of your own destruction. Oh, we probably won't literally, physically destroy you like Philip and Tracy, but we can destroy you professionally, academically, socially, or in other ways you've never even thought of.

Such a film would never have been produced a decade ago, when the global warming movement was still courting converts. This scare tactic is a direct result of the exposure of the greenies' academic malpractice, its leaders' brazen hypocrisy, and too many unguarded words revealing their socialist ulterior motives.

Rather than promoting faux-education about global warming as they used to do, the greenies have embarked on an aggressive anti-thought campaign. Followers of the movement are now being scolded for their curiosity. They shall not point out that polar bears can swim great distances, and therefore do not get stranded on ice floes. They shall not question the veracity of Al Gore's cartoon of Manhattan sinking underwater. They shall not recognize that there have been warm and cool periods throughout history, and that these cannot have been caused by Western civilization. No, their job is to mindlessly regurgitate the "facts" they're given, and to forever obey the keepers of the red button.

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