Beliefs vs. Science in the Climate Change Debate: Richard Bean’s The Heretic

Richard Bean’s dark comedy The Heretic (2011) is a unique instance of a science-on-stage play that addresses climate change from a skeptical perspective. In contrast to other environmental plays, which warn of an anthropogenic crisis aggravated by the failure of governments to take meaningful action, Bean presents his own rejection of established findings regarding sea level rise through his main character, a Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics professor in a university in the north of England. Dr. Diane Cassell echoes the claims of Nils-Axel Mörner, a controversial scientist whose work has been discredited by experts and environmental institutions. Research ethics, academic duplicity, and religious attitudes to climate change all come under the magnifying glass in the play, as Diane’s Head of Faculty asks her to delay publishing research that would prevent them from winning corporate sponsorship. A confrontational mother-daughter relationship also features as a metaphor for Diane’s rejection of scientific consensus, though Bean’s characteristic use of comedy forestalls any attempt at preaching or lecturing the audience. Despite the lack of technical information and the unconvincing ending, The Heretic provides a timely warning about conflicts of interest, misinterpretation of data, and political expediency, on both sides of the climate change debate.