Peter Hadfield, formerly of the New Scientist, has taken to YouTube to tackle climate change sceptics as he recently explained on the Guardian’s Environment Blog:
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.
The “worm” is an instant poll tracker which wriggles across people’s TV screens, showing the net negative or positive reaction of a small group of the public to what is happening on screen. Running a worm across a politician’s speech or a debate between politicians has become a not uncommon feature of political coverage across many democracies.
The worm has even occasionally surfaced in the UK – so will it surface again for our TV party leader debates at the general election? And will worms offer a chance for Channel 4 to repeat an Australian trick and put one over the other channels who have excluded it from the debates?
Known in the US as dial groups (because a group of people is each given a dial to twist towards positive or negative), worms have often been the cause of controversy there. Joe Klein in Politics Lost recounts how badly they got the 2000 Bush-Gore debates wrong:
PM @ Russell,
So you are saying the Windrush and other Caribbean migrants, most migrants from counties like Nigeria, India etc have been a drain on the economy....
Denis Mollison I was at the announcement (in Wadebridge I think) of the result in April 1966 when John Pardoe won it back from the Conservatives! Good to see this repeated at ...
Mick Taylor The really shocking thing about the mid-term elections is that less than half of those able to vote did so. This whole blue tsunami happened on a turnout of jus...
David Evans So the leader who chose to cosy up to the Conservatives for five years even though the impact on our party was clear from 6 months in and things just kept on ge...
Tristan Ward @Jana
That sounds very much like moving to the right"
No: it is occupying space that is liberal and has always been liberal, but which has been partly occ...
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PM 
Denis Mollison 
Mick Taylor 
David Evans 
Tristan Ward 