No Pressure is a 2010 short film produced by the global warming mitigation campaign 10:10, written by Richard Curtis and Franny Armstrong, and directed by Dougal Wilson.
Intended for cinema and television advertisements,[1] No Pressure is composed of scenes in which a variety of men, women and children in every-day situations are graphically blown to pieces for failing to be sufficiently enthusiastic about the 10:10 campaign to reduce CO2 emissions.
[2] The film was made in an attempt to challenge the "no pressure" attitude often displayed both by governments and individuals towards taking real action on climate change.
10:10 highlighted the urgency of action with claims that carbon dioxide emissions must be stabilised by 2014 (within four years) in order to avoid disaster,[4] and that "300,000 real people" are already killed by climate change annually.
[1] Lizzie Gillet, 10:10 global campaign director, explained: "With climate change becoming increasingly threatening, and decreasingly talked about in the media, we wanted to find a way to bring this critical issue back into the headlines while making people laugh.
[6] The four-minute film consists of a series of short scenes in which groups of people are asked if they are interested in participating in the 10:10 project to reduce carbon emissions.
In the first scene, a bright and chirpy schoolteacher, played by Lyndsey Marshal, tells her class about the 10:10 campaign, and asks what they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint.
The manager reassures them that there is "no pressure" to participate, but he is then handed a detonator by an assistant, which he uses to blow up the four workers, splattering appalled co-workers with gore.
[9][10] In The Daily Telegraph, James Delingpole wrote that the film was an "ugly, counterproductive eco-propaganda movie"[11] and that "with No Pressure, the environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness".
[12] The ConservativeHome website described it as "crass, tasteless and unfunny as it gets",[13] while Melanie Phillips in The Spectator commented on the intended humorous aspect of the film by writing that "The joke was only about blowing dissenters to bits and raining their flesh down on terrified people.
It's the kind of stupidity that 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 and out of touch—not to mention off the wall, and also with completely misplaced sense of humor".
[20] A later report in the newspaper by Adam Vaughan said that the film, "intended as a tongue-in-cheek spoof of hectoring greens", had created a huge amount of global coverage for 10:10, in print and on the web.
The report also went on to describe other, more reflective responses, which had focused on effective communication, psychology, satire, and ways of engaging with various audiences over climate change.
[3] On Friday 2 October, 10:10 placed a notice on their website saying, "Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended.
"[6] This was criticised as a non-apology apology by Michelle Malkin in the Litchfield County Register and Andrew Revkin in an opinion piece in The New York Times.
[6] Then, on Monday 5 October 10:10 director Eugenie Harvey issued a second, more comprehensive apology, stating: "We are... sorry to our corporate sponsors, delivery partners and board members, who have been implicated in this situation despite having no involvement in the film's production or release.
[26] At the same time, a spokesman for O2, a partner of 10:10, refused to disassociate itself from the group: "10:10 is an independent organisation and we don't ask for editorial control over the content of its campaigns.