For climate debate facts watch ABC fiction - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
That is, a program in which a large body of eminent scientists with an overwhelming case built and tested carefully over many years using the best procedures of science meets a politically-motivated coterie of ratbags who manipulate the truth, endlessly repeat falsehoods, harass their opponents and grandstand at every opportunity.
The program in question is the episode of Crownies aired last Thursday night. In it, DPP solicitor Richard Stirling (played by Hamish Michael and one of Crownies' real stars) reluctantly has to prosecute an eminent climate scientist who allegedly punched a climate denier in the face. The denier James Watt (played with disconcerting accuracy by Richard Healy) had been harassing Professor Tim Coghburn for years, turning up at every public event to demand answers to his inane questions lifted uncritically from some denialist website.
When Watt, after disrupting a public lecture, followed Coghburn out of the venue haranguing, insulting and poking him in the chest, the scientist finally lost his rag and lashed out. Who hasn't wanted to do that?
Crownies scriptwriter Chris Hawkshaw must have attended a few public meetings to take notes on the boorish tactics of the deniers - bombastic old white blokes who stand to declaim their crazy views, insensitive to how foolish they appear and deaf to all counterarguments. Healy captures perfectly the ignorant self-certainty and Aspergerish insensitivity so typical of the breed.
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