I’ll admit – it’s been a long time since I’ve posted a Global Warming Consensus Alert because, frankly, any “consensus” that existed was blown apart by the release of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit e-mails, which revealed a whole bunch of underhanded activity on the part of scientists promoting the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. What’s the point anymore? The unshakeable climate “consensus” has been shown to be the fraud that it always was, and the catastrophic climate change scare is receding as a political issue. It seemed like the time was right to retire the Consensus Watch series.

And then the 10:10 Campaign decided to release what has to be the most amazingly awful public relations campaign in the history of public relations campaigns.

To be honest, I’d never heard of the 10:10 campaign before last night, so in that sense, their PR ploy has been successful. It appears to be another one of the seemingly countless organizations that spring up to encourage people to make reductions in their carbon output. Their schtick is that we all need mit to reducing our carbon output by 10% a year starting this year. (An aside to the businesses that have signed up for this campaign: just what do you anticipate that you’ll be doing in 10 years when you wind your carbon emissions down to zero?) And with October ing up (10.10.10 – clever), they released a promo film on YouTube to, I suppose, raise awareness for their cause.

The video stars Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame, features music by Radiohead, and may just be the worst attempt at public relations in history. CONTENT WARNING: if you think you might be the kind of person who gets offended at graphic footage of people being blown up for not adhering to a scientific theory, you might not want to watch.

Fantastic PR idea, isn’t it? It’s nice to know that there are people who are willing to finance a high-quality film production depicting the casual extermination of individuals like me who haven’t bought into the idea that human activity is the sole cause of ing climate Armageddon. And honestly, I can’t decide what’s creepier: the portrayal of people so casually murdering others for the crime of not buying into a panic based on a scientific orthodoxy that began to unravel a year ago, or the pletely nonchalant response to the horrified reactions of the children and office workers who had just been doused in the blood and entrails of the exploded global warming skeptics. It would seem to me that if you’re going to create a film where the mit gruesome crimes, it would be best to have any witnesses to said crimes not react with revulsion and horror in order to establish that your heroes are actually good people, and not, you know, brutal, inhuman beasts.

Part of me feels guilty for blogging about this because it is a transparent ploy for attention on the part of people who deserve nothing but contempt, but on the other hand, this film is such pact and powerful demonstration of the contempt for human life that undergirds much of the modern environmental movement that I can’t resist sharing it. After all, the prerequisite for fortable with producing a film that depicts the casual, gruesome murder of one’s ideological opponents (for the greater good, of course) is the belief that human life has no inherent value, and that humans, far from being the crown of creation, are in fact not part of creation at all, but instead a destructive parasite that leeches off of and destroys the pristine beauty of Mother Earth. One may protest that the good folks at 10:10 are just “playing around” or “being funny” or “trying to make a point.” Nonsense. The issue at hand is a disagreement within the munity over the interpretation of data. The world is not in imminent danger of destruction. The 10:10 Campaign has no business casually dehumanizing people who simply disagree with them.

(I suppose it might be worthwhile to note the irony of climate alarmists creating a fictional world where they are allowed to exterminate their political opponents after spending years demonizing skeptics even to the point paring them to Nazi sympathizers who deny the reality of the Holocaust. Oh, and here’s a link to a nice, breezy article about the film at an environmentally themed website. “It would be so much easier to tackle global climate change if these naysayers were blown up like BP’s oil well.” Yeah, killing all the people who disagree with you would make it easier for you to get your longed-for public consensus.)

David Burge, who those of us in the blogosphere know better as Iowahawk, left ment on the original YouTube video (that has since been made “private,” ideally out of shame but more likely because it had plished its intended purpose of creating “buzz”) that provides a good bit of perspective on this film, and nicely sums up my thoughts on the matter:

In order for your “No Pressure” advert to have been made, I am assuming several writers pitched a professionally-prepared storyboard to mittee, detailing shot-by-shot each second of the film. mittee approved it, along with a minimum $250,000 budget to hire actors, director, & crew. Each scene probably took 3-10 takes, and weeks of post production by special effects wizards.

At no time did a single person involved in this cluster**** say, “hey, maybe it isn’t the best PR to air our fantasies about detonating the people who don’t agree with us into a mist of blood meat and bone fragments.”

This has got to be the biggest FAIL in the entire history of the internet. Anyone remotely associated with the production of this film should forever be banished from any public institution in the English speaking world, and immediately referred for psychiatric evaluation.

Amen. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get a bunch of plastic, douse it in oil and set it aflame in honor of the 10:10 Campaign.