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Global warming almost cost me a relationship. It did. Here’s the story.

I met this guy over the summer. He was smart, well-educated, environmentally-minded, multi-lingual and spoke with a French accent. He told me he biked all over London (where he lives) and ate as organically as possible…all good, right? We’d gone out a couple of times and things were going well.

One night we were at a club and I said that I wanted to get some water.

“Oh let me,” he said, returning with two bottles and handing me one.

“Um, thanks. I don’t usually drink bottled water,” I mentioned.  Politely, I thought.

“And why is that?”

Not being one to miss an opportunity, I jumped up on my soapbox and began sermonizing about the evils of bottled water. At some point the conversation led to global warming, and this is where the trouble began, with my date revealing he just doesn’t believe in global warming.

Things got awkward…fast.

You know those moments, where you have to pause and sort of collect yourself from the shock of what you’ve just heard? It was as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water on the two of us. We spent a bit more obligatory time together and then said an awkward goodnight.

I almost didn’t go out with him again.

I thought long and hard about whether I could continue dating someone who wouldn’t accept that we are accelerating global climate change (I know, right?). But he was cute and we liked the same kind of movies and the same kind of music and oh, that accent! I decided I would ask him to explain. After all, English is his third or fourth language.  Maybe there was some sort of language barrier involved.  I could only hope.

Those hopes were quickly dashed as my sophisticated, charming date explained that while he does what he can to take care of the environment, he doesn’t “drink the Kool-Aid” about climate change.

“Global warming has become like a religion and the evidence just isn’t there to support our contribution to it,” he intoned, adding that, anyway,  the proposed solutions would be too costly, global climates fluctuate naturally and besides, how much global influence could we really have?

These arguments sound familiar, don’t they?

They should. All this took place while the Group of 8 was meeting in Italy to discuss global climate change, accompanied by blow by blow news accounts detailing how the world’s biggest developed nations were refusing to commit to capping greenhouse gasses, while embracing a goal of preventing global temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees.

What? Exactly how do we go about the business of preventing global temperatures from rising (assuming that’s something we can even do at this point) without setting goals to limit the emissions underlying the trend?  And how exactly do we convince people to care about this when our governments clearly don’t? It made me think hard about our climate change policies and how grounded in science they may or may not be.

In The New York Times last February, Andrew Revkin pointed out the tendency for advocates on both sides of the climate debate to engage in hyperbole. Both sides, he warned, “…will rally their supporters and entrench their opponents, and we will be no closer to progress.”

According to Revkin, surveys indicate that roughly 60 percent of Americans are not involved in the discussion about climate change because they either don’t know about it or don’t care. So how do we engage that 60 percent? In arguing about whether the evidence proves our beliefs about climate change, how much do my date and I – and other people who are already engaged – push others out of the discussion?  The fact is, we can each find illustrations and “evidence” and competent scientists to support our positions, right?

In Communicating Climate Change: Why Frames Matter for Public Engagement, Matthew Nisbet writes that we need to reframe the discussion. He’s right. We don’t make headway when we talk in “the end of the world” terminology. There are much more positive ways to reach out to our fellow citizens: for example by appealing to our shared interest in a robust economy, improved public health, and preservation of our vital natural resources; by inspiring a sense of stewardship; and, most of all, by replacing fruitless argument with sincere, respectful dialogue.

According to Nesbit, Al Gore’s We Can Solve It campaign, which seeks to, “…unify U.S. citizens by framing climate change as a solvable and shared moral challenge,” is an example of a successful approach to engaging those who might not otherwise pay attention.

Change.org uses social media to reach wide audiences and educate people. The ability to reach people in new and widespread ways may prove critical to engaging that 60 percent of Americans who are simply not paying attention to the rising alarm about climate change, and proposed policies and legislation to address it.  But, by whatever medium they get the message, what most people need is a reason to sit up and care. Days like Blog Action Day are meant to bring a widespread audience to the discussion and hopefully will reach some of that 60%.

Nisbet notes, “Policies to address climate change will bear directly on the future of Americans, impacting their pocketbooks, lifestyles, and local communities. These decisions are therefore too significant to leave to just elected officials and experts; citizens need to be actively involved.”

This sentiment is echoed by Jim Harkness of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in an interview he gave after the Bangkok Climate Change Talks. Harkness said that although the details of emissions agreements would be worked out by negotiators, “…the mandate has to come from citizens.”

Advocates of climate change legislation need to stop arguing and providing fodder to the naysayers. Those of us who would effect change have to find ways to engage a much greater swath of the citizenry and not put them off by overstating the facts.

The issue of climate change is complex and messy and there are many factors at play – not unlike the whole dating dilemma. I could have taken a hard line stance and stopped seeing the naysayer, but I would have missed out on a summer full of fun times spent getting to know a great guy. My decision to keep seeing him didn’t come from crunching the numbers around his politics; it came from taking the whole package into account and looking at what positive things could come from seeing him.

This is the place we need to get to with climate change, because we all have our views and opinions. There is a lot of work to be done and it will take engaging each other in honest dialogue and focusing on what we all have to gain.