On June 29, a weather system called a "derecho" rolled through the Washington, D.C., area, felling trees and power lines and leaving more than a million people without power.

A "derecho," according to the news coverage, is "a fast-moving, long-lived, large, violent thunderstorm complex."

When climate events force a new word into the common vocabulary, it's another sign that the weather is getting weirder. Of course, no individual weather event can be scientifically tied to climate change. But this is the kind of event that can start to change people's minds.

For now, the climate deniers are powerful enough to block congressional action against climate change. But if you believe — as 97 percent of climate scientists do — that man-made climate change is real, then you know the day of reckoning is coming for climate deniers.

When that day arrives, a supermajority of Americans will unite behind the idea that we have to take action against climate change — and a lot of powerful people will be disgraced.

The more dire that day is likely to be for climate deniers - economically, politically, psychologically — the harder and longer they will fight to delay it. Therefore, to get action as soon as possible, climate believers need to give the deniers a face-saving way out.

This is why Democrats should soften the rhetoric of the debate — starting with my old boss Al Gore.

The former vice president is, by temperament, not a politician but a scientist. He has complete confidence in the power of science and logic to lead to truth. And I never have seen anyone more unwilling to outsource his own learning. He always wanted to know as much as his advisers — and he usually did.

So I know no one less suited to be sympathetic to non-scientists who deny scientific consensus for personal reasons or political reasons or financial reasons or because they trust non-scientists over scientists in matters of science.

At the same time, Gore also tends to think in biblical terms. As he was writing the 1998 speech he gave at the Chernobyl Museum in Ukraine, he was trying to capture the meaning of the exclusion zone created around the radioactive power plant. A few hours before the speech, he came up with this: "As from Eden, we have been banished."

So Gore, with faith in science and certitude in his faith, tends to lay down the law like an Old Testament prophet. "Change your ways or perish" is a message he delivers with conviction and perhaps sometimes some unseemly relish.

In a sampling of recent writings from his website, he has said: "It should no longer be a surprise the lengths to which Mitt Romney and other conservatives will go to obscure truth in pursuit of their narrow ideology." At the close of another of his posts, he wrote: "It's time for deniers to drop their phony excuses and get to work finding a solution to the climate crisis."

Of course, as some of the Old Testament prophets learned, when you talk to people in this tone, they don't change their ways; instead, they tend to turn on you.

So my hope — for my former boss and my fellow climate change believers — is that they take the partisan edge out of climate change. Partisanship is the deniers' trick to distract people from the signs and the science. Democrats shouldn't play along. Instead, they should step back and let leading Republicans become the face of the movement.

Late last year, NationalJournal's Coral Davenport described in a terrific article how some Republicans already are playing that role within their own party.

William Reilly, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush, condemned a House Republican vote on climate change, saying, "There was no explanation justifying a position at odds with the findings of 11 national academies of science, including our own."

Former Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., said, "Being branded as anti-science is not a good future for us."

Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who served under President Ronald Reagan, said of the Republican presidential primary candidates who denied climate science, "They're entitled to their opinion, but they're not entitled to the facts."

As climate-related disasters multiply across the country, the Republican position on climate change threatens to drive them into a political ditch. Instead of exploiting the situation, Democrats should be prepared to reach out a hand and pull them out — offering at the right moment a climate change plan that will allow Republicans to change their views but keep their conservative principles.

Usually when the other party is wrong, politics tells you to make it pay. Not this time. Making climate change a partisan issue delays action as much as denial does. Being nonpartisan in this case is not only noble but also the only way to get what we need.

Tom Rosshirt was a national security speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and a foreign affairs spokesman for Vice President Al Gore. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Tom Rosshirt and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.