What my climate-denying Lyft driver taught me about social marketing

Lyfts are, to me, so much more than a ride from A to B.

They are a spiritual experience.

By way of talkative drivers or drunken passengers, the glistening insights into the world I regularly receive in Lyfts rarely fail to inspire me, challenge me, or, at the very least, make me laugh.

My ride to the airport last Thursday was no exception.

I was on my way to the Spirit terminal from my office in Midtown Manhattan, where I work on environment programs. Creating or reading climate change communications materials is almost quotidian for me; I’ve spent years studying the planet’s interconnectedness and the ways in which we humans threaten it. And, living in the bubble that is New York city, I don’t often meet people who tell me those years have been wasted.

But this Lyft driver — we’ll call him Boris — was not most people.

Bold and void of social sensitivities, Boris spent the first half hour of the car ride in a passionate rebuke of American weddings to the dismay of my newly-engaged co-passenger. When she and her mother finally escaped by way the of American Airlines check-in counter, Boris’ interests could now only be focused on me. My lack of a fiancé meant he’d have to question my life choices in other, non-romantic areas. “So”, he asks, “What do you do?”

One by one, I let out a few buzzwords that usually help people who don’t really care what I do understand what I do. Wildlife, conservation, sustainability, climate change. All that jazz.

Boris laughed.

“You don’t really believe in climate change, do you?”

The environmentalist in me wanted to pop the trunk and walk the rest of the way to my terminal. I spend at least eight hours a day committed to tackling an issue this guy thinks is laughable. But the communicator in me wanted to know more.

I listened intently to claims that scientists can be wrong, climate change is natural, and humans couldn’t possibly alter the state of the planet. I tried to offer the usual scientific evidence without luck. And then, after a few more attempts at luring him to the green side, I realized something:

Boris cares about his family. So do I. Boris enjoys nature. So do I. Boris wants other people to be healthy and happy. So do I.

We cared about the same things — we just had different ways of protecting them. Once we recognized this, the conversation turned from a cycle of disagreement to a discussion about what matters to us. He told me about growing up in Russia and I told him about growing up in Florida. How we feel about love and pain. How we dream about the future. Slowly but surely, our shared humanity bubbled to the surface. We weren’t exactly agreeing on climate change, but we weren’t debating either.

And just before he pulled into the passenger drop-off lane, Boris turned to me and said, “I may not believe what you do is necessary, but I believe the way you do it is.”

It took me the entire four-hour flight to understand why he said that.

When you are open to discussion, when you invite challenges to your beliefs, and when you think deeply about whatever question is at hand, you will find that most people want the same things. But by writing off or demonizing those who disagree with you, you lose sight of the very humanity you are likely calling for in others.

Boris and I didn’t change each other’s minds. We didn’t even try to look for common ground, but we still found it. And wouldn’t it make a killer campaign to paint a picture of climate heaven — of a world in which these common human desires are fulfilled — rather than continue to threaten the climate hell that hasn’t seemed to phase people like Boris so far?

As social marketers, we get so caught up in trying to figure out ways to make people care about what we care about that forget they are often one in the same.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that respect for other human beings is not just a part of the world we want to create— it’s how we can create it.