So this guy writes into my local paper today to deny global warming...

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

...and says if the world's ice melts, it won't matter because if you put ice cubes in a glass of water and watch themmelt the water level drops.
he forgot the world's ice mass is mostly on land and not in the water.
Why are people so damn stupid?!?

[Blashyrkh]

1. To make the rest of us feel smarter?

I know people aren't stupid, most of them just don't know how to think in an analytical or critical way. A direct consequence of dumbening (used in the Simpsons, therefore real word) of education, the media and both political and social discourse. ie Intentional.

[seriousstan]

2. Unlike most of us here, of course.

[Blashyrkh]

6. Correct. Though it isn't without it's own unqiue flavour of "freeper".

The PC wing can berate and intimidate with the best of them.

I mean, he's not entirely incorrect because not ALL ice is land ice. Most of the artic circle and some of the Antartic is made up of sea ice. But then, the problem is the massive infusion of fresh water into the salt water, rather than sea level. The change in water salinity will destroy the complex system of winds and sea currents that currently exist.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

7. Right, the Arctic Ocean is

but Greenland and Antarctica are where the rise in sea level would come from.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

3. Those with the stupidest opinions..

Are usually those who trumpet them the most loudly.

There's a pithy quote about it but I'm too lazy to look it up.

[liberalmuse]

4. I hope that was in the Comic's section.

Or under "Wingnut Science." HAHAHAHAHAhahahahaha! Please post the response when it hits your paper, LOL!

[kansasblue]

5. I'm becoming convinced that we'll just have to fight this issue....

with a very large portion of the US population begin opposed to it.

I hear it all... the Global Warning always happens it natural,

that in the 70's it was Global Cooling...

that Global Warning might be good for the planet,

and who are we to judge the changes. Maybe this is what God wants.

or..that there is Global Warning but it's not caused by man.

and, of course, there isn't Global Warning.

The best is that it is being made up by govt scientist so that they can get rich off of research grants.

(very Rovian to suggest that while the Oil corp are looting the world)

[EC]

8. He also forgot

what happens to the buoyancy of the water or what it means to our rivers, when freshwater melts into saltwater.

[sakabatou]

12. Poland?

[Greyhound]

9. Praduks of the americun ejukashun sistem. n/t

[EST]

10. Lemme think here...

Besides the fact that the melting ice is primarily on land and is sequestered moisture, with some of it many thousands of years old, removed from circulation, doesn't a free floating body displace its own mass? That would mean the water level would remain the same in his melting ice example, since the water displaced by the ice is exactly equal to the water the ice contributes when it melts.

So the poor idiot is as lacking in scientific understanding on one point as the other. Perhaps it's only repubes who have never heard of Archimedes' principle.

[sakabatou]

11. That's not how it works....

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

13. if i recall correctly from Mr Wizard's World, doesn't it remain the same level?

But whatever the case-it's not a relevant experiment to polar ice

[opihimoimoi]

14. I believe Rush used that shit a while back...

[sibelian]

15. Oh, well, that's fine, then.

The total destruction of an entire habitat's okay because of ice cubes.

And the reduction in the albedo effect - well, never mind.

[KillCapitalism]

16. Tell him to come to my neck of the woods & he'll believe.

We've been suffering through upper 90's STILL in mid-September.

[Red Zelda]

17. ...and the paper's editors

don't know any better.