So you have this friend who just doesn't seem to get global warming. Showing him pictures of polar bears stranded on icebergs generates no sympathy. He is unmoved by computer images of New York under water. Could he really be a right-wing crackpot, unwilling to face the fact that the Earth is doomed?
Well maybe not. After questioning and listening to hundreds of climate change "sceptics," I have found that not all are conspiracy theorists or religious fundamentalists. Many are keen to learn about the science of climate change, but they have been learning about it from rather dubious sources.
So two years ago I began a series of videos on YouTube to explain the science, and rebut urban myths that spin round the internet and end up on the opinion pages of the Daily Express and the Wall Street Journal. The result has been astonishing. My channel, Potholer54, now has over 27,000 subscribers. The videos have been mirrored by others all over the internet, and several university lecturers have asked if they can use it in their environmental science classes. Most importantly, former sceptics tell me the videos have changed their minds about the reality of climate change.
That success, however, comes at a price. It means looking at the science – not scary and unrealistic images of submerged cities. It means accepting the fact that Al Gore is not always right, and he should not be defended when he's wrong. It means acknowledging that while sceptics like Christopher Monckton and Martin Durkin fabricate a lot of their facts, many environmental activists tend to exaggerate theirs.
Of course, the evidence clearly shows that the climate is changing, largely because of man-made gases. And the consequences are likely to be dire. But exaggerating them – and being caught out – is not the way to gain public understanding or trust. As a science journalist I could not, with a clear conscience, report that the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice caps will drown most of Florida (as Al Gore does in An Inconvenient Truth) without pointing out that this is not likely to happen for thousands of years.
The result of this candour is that a lot of sceptics trust the Potholer54 channel, and appreciate that they are not being talked down to, or badgered or lectured. I do not call them climate "deniers", which presupposes there is some irrefutable truth they are denying. But neither are they truly sceptics. They learn climate science the same way many schoolchildren learn about sex – from other kids. The only difference in the internet age is that the playground got bigger.
Without question they unsceptically believe dubious sources like Fox News, the Daily Express and amateur blogs. A parade of scientists (never mind if they have degrees in microbiology or metallurgy) tell them that ocean cycles are reponsible for global warming, or that there is no warming at all, or that even if there is there is nothing to worry about.
Spend just a few days in this bizarre world of disinformation and it is hard to understand how the audience could not come to the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. And if it is a hoax, the next obvious conclusion is that climate scientists must be either stupid or in it for the money. Deconstructing all this spurious guff, one myth at a time, means checking it back to its source, finding the errors, and then pitting it against proper research studies. No need for condescention, insult, or appeals to emotion.
Environmental activists who have subscribed to the channel also began to change their minds about climate change, but for a different reason. They learned that some tenets of the environmental movement are not founded on solid science. And they told me the series had armed them with the information they needed to rebut arguments from sceptic friends and relatives.
Science is science because the knowledge we aquire comes from experimentation and observation, not guesswork, belief and hearsay. Sadly, most newspapers dispensed with a dedicated science correspondent years ago. Editors at the Mail may be a whizz at dissecting the problems of the National Health Service, but the morsel of science they understand can be drowned in their lunchtime gin-and-tonics. Once people understand this, the job of explaining real science is easy.
• Peter Hadfield was a correspondent for New Scientist for 14 years, and contributed regularly to the BBC's Science in Action and ABC's (Australia) The Science Show
Climate voices - messages sent to Peter Hadley via his YouTube channel
• "Your series on climate change is by far the best scientific, non-sensational piece I've ever seen on the subject. It clears up a lot of things that I'd been hearing about that I now realise were purposefully leaving things out. I can only hope more people adopt your non-partisan style of reporting facts in the future."
• "Really well done. I have learned a great deal from this series. I am sceptical by nature but fed into the 'denier's' claims without doing the proper investigation ( it can be quite time consuming)."
• "I decided a year ago that I would face my beliefs and distroy them. Belief used to be defined as ... the acceptance of something as true no matter the evidence to the contrary. It has since been watered down.
I believed that global warming caused by mans activities was bullshit. I just finished viewing your series on this issue and ... I must distroy my belief and accept the science on the topic. You have presented compelling evidence to support global warming due to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere ... I cannot express how painful that is to type ... POTHOLER54"
• "EXCELLENT WORK ... as one of those "environmental activists" who admittedly doesn't know all the science ... (hey I'm a Social Studies major) I am looking forward to your next video. I'm glad someone finally explained the 800-year discrepancy thing."