Well for me the way to deal with the whole "climate change" is wrong, if they were to say - "who wants cleaner air and water" - Nobody would argue and things would just move forward and avoid getting hung up on debate and endless papers and research to spell out the common sense. It is like arguing the compass direction to the nearest degree when if you said is the general wind N,S,E or west then everybody would agree it's just one of those and things would move in the right general direction instead of doing circles for years upon years, whilst time waits for nobody.
In short, its how you define the issue in a way that everybody can relate too better and if that means going indirectly with the side-effect being the target, then so be it.
SlateStarCodex once outlined how you might make a conservative case for dealing with climate change; the Archdruid Report discusses the subject, too. The key is to only argue climate change; it's much easier to persuade people that climate change is an issue, than to persuade them that climate change is an issue and the only solution is Communism. Think cap-and-trade, lasting strategic independence (at least one Iraq hawk drove a Prius), and the irresponsible foreigners fouling up the atmosphere while we do our bit to help...
> Well for me the way to deal with the whole "climate change" is wrong, if they were to say - "who wants cleaner air and water" - Nobody would argue and things would just move forward
I've tried this argument many times with climate change skeptics. It almost always comes down to economics for them. They want cleaner air and water, but not at the expense of their wallets.
Bringing up the long-term economic effects of climate change just brings us back to the original argument.
In short, its how you define the issue in a way that everybody can relate too better and if that means going indirectly with the side-effect being the target, then so be it.