The British climate change organization 10:10 recently got “Britain’s leading comedy writer, Richard Curtis” (writer of Four Weddings an a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually, and the Mr. Bean sitcom) to make a short video for the organization [video at bottom of the page].
I remember getting an excited email from 10:10 as soon as the video was launched, especially since some big acting and soccer stars were in it and it was being featured on the Guardian. I didn’t watch it immediately but soon started hearing complaints (even from hard-core climate activists) that it went overboard. I thought, “Oh, come on, people are probably overreacting as usual,” but when I watched it myself, I thought, “Whoa, they thought that was a good idea?”
Apparently, 10:10, which I think is a great organization, got the word pretty quickly that the film was too harsh and took it down the same day they launched it. The page where the video originally was now says:
Sorry.
Today we put up a mini-movie about 10:10 and climate change called ‘No Pressure’.
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 whilst making people laugh. We were therefore delighted when Britain’s leading comedy writer, Richard Curtis – writer of Blackadder, Four Weddings, Notting Hill and many others – agreed to write a short film for the 10:10 campaign. Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn’t and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended.
As a result of these concerns we’ve taken it off our website. We won’t be making any attempt to censor or remove other versions currently in circulation on the internet.
We’d like to thank the 50+ film professionals and 40+ actors and extras and who gave their time and equipment to the film for free. We greatly value your contributions and the tremendous enthusiasm and professionalism you brought to the project.
At 10:10 we’re all about trying new and creative ways of getting people to take action on climate change. Unfortunately in this instance we missed the mark. Oh well, we live and learn.
Onwards and upwards,
Franny, Lizzie, Eugenie and the whole 10:10 team
Disappointing that such a great crew and writer (I love Curtis’ stuff) made such a blunder here. I’m sure they’re even more disappointed than me. But, again, what were they thinking?
Big climate activism fail here.
If you haven’t seen the video and are itching to see it, here it is:
I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com or click on some of the links below.
