My eldest son, Harry, is doing a project at school entitled ‘The Angry Earth.’ Last night over dinner he suddenly shouted “I hate global warming!”

His mother, possessor of more degrees than you can shake a stick at, said “Why?”

“Because we will get no more snow!” he retorted.

“Or we might get lots of snow…” I muttered

“Why?”

“Because it could mess with our weather system.”

As I spoke I realised I had opened the whole weather/climate can of worms. He’s a very clever boy but I was at risk of leaving him confused. We talked it through and he seemed OK with the idea that global warming might result in local freezing. But it begs the question – is it better to leave people with a over-simplistic understanding of climate change or confuse them with the complexities?

It is this reason that I’ve given up trying to explain climate change science to people in my employee engagement work for clients. I prefer to ask people what they are going to do about carbon emissions instead – usually a much more fruitful conversation.

* Sharp-eyed fans of Game of Thrones might notice that Harry is pictured in the courtyard of Winterfell, give or take a little CGI and a lot of mud.