Just when you thought it was safe to challenge the pseudo-science behind the idea of human-caused climate change, a play with the title Kill Climate Deniers premiered March 1 for its 2018 run at the Griffin Theatre in Sydney, Australia. Lest you think the title is from the satirical newspaper The Onion, be assured that this is an actual theatrical presentation, put on by an actual theatre. The play is scheduled to run through April 7. It is the brainchild (a term used extremely loosely) of Australian playwright David Finnigan. Initially commissioned in 2014 with a $19,000 grant from the Australian government, the play had a brief run last fall in Long Beach, California, and is now on its first full theatrical run.
The initial staging of the play was postponed due to a backlash led primarily by Andrew Bolt, a conservative columnist with the Melbourne based Herald Sun newspaper. “How does the … government justify spending taxpayers’ money on a theatre work entitled “Kill Climate Deniers”? What sane government donates to a project urging others to kill fellow citizens, even as a joke?” Bolt asked in 2014.
Finnigan denies that, despite the title, the play is a call to violence of any kind, but rather “a pretty joyful comedy.”
The plot? As a classic rock band takes the stage, the Australian Parliament House is stormed by 96 eco-terrorists, intent on ending global warming that very night. Unless their demands to end all carbon emissions and coal exports are met, they will execute their 1,700 hostages.
Folded into the plot, in a re-working of the original story, is Bolt’s objection to the play, as the play now includes quotes from skeptics and even a facsimile of Bolt himself. “I didn’t ask him to get involved in the project but since he did, I’m not going to ignore the comedy value that he brings to everything he touches,” Finnigan said.
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In addressing climate realists, Finnigan says, “I genuinely think they [climate realists] understand perhaps better than myself and a lot of left-leaning liberals the consequences of climate science. And because they understand the consequences, they can’t accept the science.”
Sure, David, that’s what’s happening.
If nothing else, Finnigan is stunningly honest about the real goal of climate-change alarmists. “These deniers see climate change as the leading edge of this massive effort to restructure society with a socialist frame,” Finnigan says. “I think they’ve got a really good handle on how climate change is going to affect every facet of society in the next fifty years.”
The Griffin Theatre Company’s website describes the show as “A play within a play, an action film inside a documentary, a satire inside a rave.” The website further states, “Kill Climate Deniers is an angry, energized response to the climate change ‘debate’ and its hyperbolic title was an intentional move by Finnigan.”
The “documentary” portion of the production has, supposedly, been assiduously reviewed. “All the science was double and triple fact-checked,” according to Finnigan. There was no word on who did the fact checking, but we assume it wasn’t climate scientists Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. Roy Spencer, or Dr. William Happer. Or any of the thousands of scientists who disagree with the so-called consensus that anthropogenic global warming is real and threatening to the planet’s existence.
It’s easy to dismiss this ludicrous theatre offering as nonsense or simple craziness, but it is prudent to remember that life sometimes imitates art. Just last year during the active hurricane season, Mark Hertsgaard of The Nation published a piece entitled “Climate Denialism is Literally Killing Us,” in which he stated, “Murder is murder…. We should punish it as such.” Brad Johnson of the super-PAC Climate Hawks Vote similarly said in the wake of the hurricanes, “Put public officials who reject science in jail.”
It’s not that much of a stretch to believe that, in the near future, neo-socialists could use the issue of climate change as a stick with which to bludgeon the advocates of freedom. A future socialist government might well use climate change to jail dissidents. And some “true believers” might just see Kill Climate Deniers as a call to action and not just satire.
