By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The fallout from a shockingly violent film depicting opponents of global warming being blown up – now dubbed “Splattergate” – is causing environmentalists around the world to run for cover.
The Daily Caller is reporting that the internet ad, entitled “No Pressure” and produced by the British group 10:10, shows the graphic deaths of all opponents of the global warming theory – even young school children. The film depicts a series of authority figures asking crowds to participate in voluntary efforts to cut energy use. Anyone who does not volunteer is blown to pieces, with their blood and guts splattering the others.
The ad caused such outrage it was removed from the group’s site within hours of its launch.
“Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn’t and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended,” said a spokesman for 10:10.
When The Caller tried to get reaction from U.S. environmentalist groups, only a few were willing to risk a comment.
One of them was Greenpeace. “As an organization committed to non-violence, I think you can imagine how Greenpeace views this material,” said spokeswoman Jane Kochersperger. She followed the comment by saying that the only people who were now promoting the offensive ad were “climate skeptics and think tanks funded by corporations known for lobbying against climate change legistlation.”
Another American environmental group, 350.org, denounced the advertisement and cut off its affiliation with 10:10.
“350.org strongly denounces the ‘No Pressure’ video released in the UK by the 10:10 Campaign,” the group said in a written statement. “The video is diametrically opposed to everything we and this movement stands for.”
350.org Founder Bill McKibben later blogged that “the video represents the kind of stupidity that really hurts our side, reinforcing in people’s minds a series of preconceived notions, not the least of which is that we’re out-of-control elitists. Not to mention crazy . . .”
The Caller got no response from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund.
Fox News’ Glenn Beck points out that this is not the first time environmentalists have espoused harsh punishment as a way to gain adherence to their cause.
For instance, NASA’s James Hansen said in 2008 that climate skeptics should be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity.”
In 2007, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. declared skeptics to be traitors, saying their opposition is akin to “treason . . . And we need to start treating them as traitors.” Just last year, Kennedy called coal companies “criminal enterprises” and said their CEO’s should “be in jail for all of eternity.”
In 2009, former Clinton Administration official Joe Romm defended a comment he made on his Climate Progress website warning skeptics that they would be strangled in their beds. “An entire generation will soon be ready to strangle you and your kind while you sleep in your beds,” he said. Romm later defended the comment, saying it was “not a threat but a prediction.”
Most disturbing of all, however, is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 10:10 film in which one of the children – seen covered in fake blood and the exploded flesh of a classmate – says “I think it is fine to explode children for a good cause.”
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