UPDATE: The connection in Crownies to me is unmistakeable now, see update below.
Stranger than fiction shades of Ben Santer:
“Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.” – Dr. Ben Santer in a Climategate email
I was aware of this TV show last week as a couple of alert readers brought it to my attention, but unfortunately I couldn’t comment on it for two reasons: 1) The draconian ABC (Australia) copyright policy prevents it from being viewed in the USA, so I couldn’t see the scene or get the dialog and 2) If I commented on it, people would say I was the only one who sees the comparison, and that it was self serving. Tim Blair of the Daily Telegraph solves both problems. He transcripts the dialog and writes:
Idealistic young lawyer: “He’s a lead author for the IPCC. He’s a climatologist who put together a global temperature reconstruction going back 12,000 years!”
Legal secretary: “So he’s a geek.”
Idealistic young lawyer: “He’s been on Four Corners.”
Legal secretary: “A huge geek.”
Idealistic young lawyer: “And on Oprah.”
Legal secretary: “Slightly cool. And the alleged assault?”
Idealistic young lawyer: “He punched a climate change sceptic, James Watt. Watt runs a blog, CO2 Fraud, a bunch of anti-science crap.”
Legal secretary: “Sounds like a fun day in court. You haven’t had a win yet, have you?”
Continue viewing to see the impressive physical differences between doddery old denier and punchy professor, who must be the only climatologist in history with a $250 haircut.
Former Greens candidate Clive Hamilton loved it:
At last, the ABC has broadcast a program that accurately reflects the debate over climate science.
Yep – cool guys versus jabbering idiots who deserve a beating!
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.
Hamilton didn’t watch very carefully. The Watt character – possibly a dig at Anthony Watts – runs his own site. And the climatologist is Steve Coburn, not Tim Coghburn. Clive can’t even get TV credits right.
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?
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Read it all here at Tim Blair’s column
What is ironic is that when I gave public lectures in Australia, the only person who disrupted them was reef scientist turned activist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.
Strangeness abounds. I’m not sure what to make of this. At least there is some comfort, according to my friends in Australia, the Crownies TV show appears to be tanking in the ratings. In a way though, the Watt character is an everyman, representing those who have doubts about the state of the science.
For anyone in Australia, here’s the episode, number thirteen.
Here’s the preview writeup.
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UPDATE: I still can’t watch this show, but commenter “pwl” did, and adds some transcript. It seems unmistakeable now that I am the inspiration for the character:
From the show at about 15:20 into it.
“Was he aware that the modern temperature record was utterly corrupt? They put thermometers next to air conditioning units and on airport tarmacs.” – Fictional James Watts
“So you think a few thermometers at airports accounts for the late 20th century rise in recorded temperatures globally?” – Fake Idealistic young lawyer DPP solicitor Richard Stirling
“With El Nino thrown in, yes.” – Fictional James Watts
“And the rise in ocean temperatures, the receding glaciers, the earlier spring flowering, the earlier bird and animal migration, the collapse of arctic summer ice cover?” – Fake Idealistic young lawyer DPP solicitor Richard Stirling
“Was that in my police statement?” – Fictional James Watts
“Not really.” – Fake Idealistic young lawyer DPP solicitor Richard Stirling
“Oh, then why ask it?” – Fictional James Watts
“I’m demonstrating how upset professor may have been with your line of questioning. It goes to motive.” – Fake Idealistic young lawyer DPP solicitor Richard Stirling
“Hm.. right.” – Fictional James Watts
Oh, the professors book was being launched at the meeting where the fictional punch took place. The funny part is that the book is entitled “Boiling Frogs”.
Boiling Frogs aka Richard Stirling, fictional lawyer.
Anthony,
I haven’t been keeping an exact track, but of the five continents I think you have been only slimed by hit-and-run media supporting alarming AGW on three continents. Right?
Paraphrasing the rock group Meatloaf’s song,
John
Anthony, or anyone else who wants to watch the episode, there are a number of places you can find it on the web, such as http://watchseries.eu/serie/crownies or http://www.1channel.ch/watch-2726351-Crownies. I leave it up to each person of course to decide if they want to watch this way, and I have no idea if it makes much difference, but I use my browser with pop-ups blocked, adblock plus, and third party cookies blocked.
John Whitman says:
October 4, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Anthony,
I haven’t been keeping an exact track, but of the five continents I think you have been only slimed by hit-and-run media supporting alarming AGW on three continents. Right?
==============================================================
I’m not sure there has been a poll on Antarctica, but I seem to recall a penguin issue that may not have endeared him to some of the people down there. Something about banding and population reduction……. so while the press releases may have come from a different continent……… We just can’t help but shoot the messenger. 🙂
You should get a free pizza.
Anthony – welcome to being famous. You will need to get used to stuff like this.
IANAL. but I suggest it may be appropriate to get some basic legal advice from an Australian lawyer on these issues. I expect the law will be fairly different to the USA.
William says: @ur momisugly October 4, 2011 at 11:28 am
….The fact that the price of some basic foods has increased over 100% due to the biofuel initiative will result in malnutrition and if the program continues starvation in third world countries….
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William you might want to check out: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-goldman-gambled-on-starvation-2016088.html and http://www.globalissues.org/article/758/global-food-crisis-2008
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I wonder how many people will checkout WUWT out of curiosity after seeing the show and then decide to do more reading and investigating.
It has a science fiction feel to it.
It will be many years into the future before there will be prosecutions of Climate Scientists.
Once the current politically-correct save the planet movement wears off.
On the other hand, Michael Mann is being investigated right now by a prosecutor.
pwl:
“’ No theory is carved in stone. Science is merciless when it comes to testing all theories over and over, at any time, in any place. Unlike religion or politics, science is ultimately decided by experiments, done repeatedly in every form. There are no sacred cows. In science, 100 authorities count for nothing. Experiment counts for everything.’ – Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at City College of New York”
Unfortunately, Kaku doesn’t walk the talk: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/27/michio-kaku-goes-cuckoo-for-global-warming-fueled-snowstorms/.
I think a YouTube comparing The Lord Monkton saying “I beg your pardon” and any other hippy smashing a …
[Sorry, had to snip it. ~dbs, mod.]
In terms of the legality in Australia, all Anthony has to prove is that an “average person” links the character to the real identity, and that “average person” understood it to be an insult to the real identity. To prove real identity you just need to show links between the character and the real identity, and that those links are picked up by “average person”.
Prove that, and defamation is proved.
“It could have to do with the draconian copyright protection rules Anthony mentioned but I can’t help suspecting that they made rules incredibly strict to cover the fact that even if there were no rules at all there probably wouldn’t be many people lining up to steal much of it anyway.”
They just changed the rules over here a couple of weeks ago, so now we can’t even download the mp4 version of the show from the ABC site any more, we can only watch it on the computer on the small screen. I used to be able to burn a dvd & walk the 20-ish feet into my living room & watch it on the big screen.
Episode 13 was easy enough to watch (not enjoy) at the “Crownies” section of the ABC Australian television website. Basically it was a young 20 something lawyer outsmarts ignoramus middle aged climate sceptic. The sceptic is so thick he has no idea he has been outwitted. Just another thinly veiled attempt at preaching the AGW doctrine.
The climate sceptic seems to be a blend of a number of personas, obviously some ideas have come from hearing about WUWT such as the incorrect placement of met. instruments. Unfortunately the ignorant character reminds me of certain Australian politicians. Fortunately the programme will have very limited appeal. Those over 50 probably won’t relate to it and basically anyone under 50 doesn’t watch the ABC unless it is something like Playschool.
The chest poking is a metaphor for what reality is doing to the climatology community. They want to lash out at annoying old reality but it only causes more problems.
Not even this would convince me to watch that show. You are indeed fortunate in the US in being unable to do so. As a show it is flat beyond belief. The writers are young things especially selected by the ABC feminist-socialist drama bureaucracy. The characters actually are not too bad. However any sort of plot twist is completely ironed out. This show is unintentionally funny, but the joke takes an hour to run.
Hi Gal Combs,
I also hope people who watched the propaganda television show check out “Watts up with that”. When the extreme AGW movement has mostly talk it seemed harmless. I am not so sure now.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/5369284.stm
Biofuels: Green energy or grim reaper?
The grain required to fill the petrol tank of a Range Rover with ethanol is sufficient to feed one person per year. Assuming the petrol tank is refilled every two weeks, the amount of grain required would feed a hungry African village for a year Much of the fuel that Europeans use will be imported from Brazil, where the Amazon is being burned to plant more sugar and soybeans, and Southeast Asia, where oil palm plantations are destroying the rainforest habitat of orangutans and many other species.
– Meeting the 5.75% target would require, according to one authoritative study, a quarter (25%) of the EU’s arable land.
– With just 10% of the world’s sugar harvest being converted to ethanol, the price of sugar has doubled; the price of palm oil has increased 15% over the past year, with a further 25% gain expected next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/20/brazil-crisis-cabinet-amazon-deforestation
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/05/biofuels.food
You could probably threaten the ABC with legal action for defamation (which is rather more easily proved in Australia than the USA, and there are few “famous person” exemptions and the like).
The ABC management are quite sensitive to that kind of thing and it might rattle them.
I understand Aussie defamation law is much the same as UK, Anthony – in which case, you really should consider bringing a case.
In my opinion, a member of the TEAM have sued in the US on less grounds than you have here. “Hide the Decline” YouTube comes to mind.
Here is a re-release http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gzlv9CXEuk
1 Dec. 2009. This seems to be a copy of the original version restored to YouTube.
Hide the Decline II:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/21/second-mann-spoof-video-removed/
A suit will probably not win. After all…
“It isn’t about Truth at all,
It about being Plausible….
Wow Anthony, you must be doing something right!
Maybe it’s all the coverage of Gillard’s ridiculous Carbon Tax.
Who writes the show? Maybe you’ve defeated them in a debate somewhere, and they really weren’t happy about it.
I wouldn’t worry about what Clive Hamilton thinks (if indeed he does), nor what the ABC (i.e. Australian Biased Communists) say, if I were you.
Hamilton makes comments on “Climate Change” indicating that his total knowledge of the subject could be written on the head of a pin with a blunt pencil. He knows even less than our (part time but expensive) ‘Commissar for Climate Change’ Tim Flannery, if that is possible. But with the censure and censoring of Andrew Bolt I cannot say what I really think of them both, in case either feels his extremely thin skin has been irritated.
As for the ABC, even many in our Labor Party (your Democrats) think that there are too far to the left. The only consolation is that they didn’t portray you naked (but for the flag wrapped around you) and asking for sex, as they did for our Prime Minister.
A good counter to that would be to suggest they examine the articles listed under “climate change” and/or “global warming” in the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature.” I haven’t done so, but I suggest that some scholar here undertake the task of reading and rating them all. They should mostly be accessible online, which would simplify the job.
This would be thread-worthy. It would shut down one of the particularly noxious warmist bleats. (I hope Anthony agrees and encourages this project.)
PS: The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature provides a good representative sample of MSM treatment of the topic. No one could claim any cherry-picking had been employed.
What you must remember is that the ABC and its film makers are funded by the Australian government which is currently a Green/Socialist coalition, so it must push the government line or it gets no funding.
Indeed, it has recently had to ban appearances by more strident critics of the Green/Socialist coalition or its policies.
This same government is currently pushing to gag the media.
Anthony, you should contact an Australian lawyer to see if he/she thinks you could have a case.
I didn’t watch the show, but then i haven’t watched anything produced by the ABC in at least 10 years. But reading through the above, you appear too lightly disguised to qualify as a fictional character.
In Australia you can’t put real people into fiction and defame them.
And you are clearly defamed by being portrayed as a crank who harasses people and doesn’t understand the science.
Don’t worry about contacting an Australian lawyer.
Unless you are an aboriginal/ gay/ environmentalist you will get no joy from the courts here.
If you doubt this Google “Pat Eatock v Andrew Bolt & Anor” or go to http://www.ipa.org.au/sectors/ideas-liberty/publication/1928/82-per-cent-of-australians-think-freedom-of-speech-is-more-important-than-the-right-not-to-be-offended
…. to see how far the left nut-bags have strangled this country