my conversation with a global warming denier

[KelleyKramer]

I must confess, a long time ago I used to get all worked up and hot under the collar when talking to Ditto head types. Many times to the point of it becoming a shouting match. Maybe its just from getting older, or most likely during the Bush years it was so easy proving their talking points as utter bullshit.

In any case, I was at a small party last night and got into it with a real right wing nut. We eventually got on global warming. Now, I have always been curious about this topic, and what the motivation is for these rightwingers to so vehemently deny it.

This guy just refused to believe warming was taking place. He said something about all the snow storms and laughed.

I told him, 'you do know that more snow doesnt really mean its colder, it just means that its below 32 and there is a lot of rain'

For some reason that seemed to catch him off guard, so then I rattled off everything I could think of...

2010 was the hottest year ever recorded. 9 of the 10 hottest years ever recorded were all since the year 2000. Greenland and the Arctic ice are melting.

In the 400+ years we have know about the Northwest Passage above Canada, now for the first time ever ships can freely pass during the summer.

They are estimating that in the next 10-20 years, during the summer you will be able to sail a boat to Russia right over the top of the north pole.

There are huge chunks of ice, some the size of Rhode Island breaking off of Antarctica and melting.

Just last month we had to emergency evacuate some bases in Antarctica because the Ross ice shelf is breaking up and melting.

I told him about Glacier national park, that almost half the ice has already melted. I said if he wanted to go he better hurry because they are estimating it will ALL be melted in about 5-10 years. (On this one he actually mumbled 'yeah, I heard something about that')

I told him that this topic is the only rightwing issue I can think of that Sara Palin does not agree with. Why? Because she lives in AK and they SEE IT happening. She can literally see it from her kitchen window (I really had fun saying that part!)

I told him that a few years ago, for the first time ever the Iditarod dog sled race had to be moved, they had to move it 200 miles further north because all the snow and ice are melting.

And again, I just dont understand the motivation for these people to so vehemently deny the reality. I even asked him why he would so strongly deny something like weather reports? He said 'because it's bullshit!'

So I told him... look, if I am wrong then everything will be fine, if you are wrong then eventually millions and millions of people will die. Don't you think you shouldn't be so quick to scoff at it, you know, just in case??!!

He slowed down a little with that one, but not much, he still pretty much scoffed at it.

I told him that its more than just hot weather and melting ice, its screwing up the entire weather system. There will be more and more extreme weather. More storms, more hurricanes, more tornados, more floods, and even more droughts. 100 and 500 year floods are becoming more and more routine.

That slowed him down a little more, but it was still clear that there was really no way to change his mind. So I gave up, and hit him with my last shot...

I asked him if he had children. He said yes.

I told him he needed to do something very important. You need to talk to your children, you need to make it perfectly clear to all your children that their father does not believe in global warming, and that their father refused to do anything about it, ever.
You need to tell your children that every single day, so that they will never forget it for the rest of their lives.

With that it pretty much ended. When I first mentioned his kids he started to get really angry, but it was clear he had no idea where I was headed with it and by the time I finished he had a weird look and just mumbled something under his breath. I told him there was no point in going on about it and just walked off.

--

Every time I have one of these encounters I always come back later and second guess what I should have said. I have used alot of those points in one way or another before, the kid thing was new and I have no idea where that came from. In the end I may have made a dent but I'm guessing he will not change his mind.

One interesting thing, when I started stating specific things that have happened, his wife sure did get very interested in our conversation, maybe I won his wife over, but who knows?

But the thing that still baffles me is why are these rightwingers so strongly against any mention of global warning, they can't ALL have a billionaire uncle that owns an oil rig or coal power plant, so I just don't understand what the motivation is???

Yes, the guy was pretty much an asshole, and he clearly hates liberals, but there has to be more to it than that.

[SpiralHawk]

1. Why? They let Rush 'DraftDodger' Limbaugh do their thinking for them

and he gets paid $40 million RepubliCorp cashmoneybucks to lie to them, manipulate them, and sucker them.

Same thing for Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly etc. - all chickenhawks. All PAID outrageous sums of cashmoneybucks by RepubliCorp to SUCKER people.

Some day the suckers may wake up and realize the Republicons have been playing them for suckers.

They are likely to be one angry pack of suckers at that point...

[Bigmack]

2. I have come to the conclusion that...

the rightwing response to everything... greed and denial of fact.. comes from their genes.

Every species needs a number of selfish individuals who blindly pursue their own goals, no matter the harm to the group and no matter how irrational their behavior is. That way, if the empathic individuals are wiped out trying to save the group, the One-Way Assholes (my pet name for the super-republicans) will survive to carry on the species.

They can't help being One-Way Assholes any more than I can help being empathic.

We just have to see to it the O-W-A group doesn't take over.

[PCIntern]

3. Because in the 5000 or so years of the history of the Universe,

nothing has ever changed, nor should it.

[LiberalAndProud]

4. Talking heads.

When Rush came on the air a few decades ago, I had no idea that concerns about global warming were a partisan issue. No idea at all. I live in the heart of a red state and it just wasn't a political thing.

Then Rush came on the air and said it was. So it became that. I (innocently enough) listened to him in the early days, and I remember feeling physical relief when I heard him say that global warming was a fallacy. Even then I knew it was a lie, but it alleviated my sense of powerlessness to stop the destruction. See there? I don't have to do anything. This is all just a natural cycle in the life of the earth. (Whew!)

Rush and Friends have changed our national character. And it hasn't been a good thing. Not even a little bit. We are so polarized and so cemented in our belief systems that I fear that violence is the only logical outcome.

[KelleyKramer]

7. You may be on to something

I really dont get the idea that rightwingers want to destroy the world and support billionaire polluters

[PCIntern]

5. good work...

as a frequent poster of conversations, it is particularly gratifying when you have the upper hand and many of your talking points you rehearsed/learned RIGHT HERE on DU!!!

[KelleyKramer]

6. thanks, and yes indeed...

I did a lot of reading up on it about a month ago, and it really came in handy this time.

One pattern I have noticed, when you start beating them most of these nuts will switch from issue to issue, over and over. I dont let them do that any more, will literally interupt and say 'we'll get to that in a minute', that seems to usually work, and at that point you've got'em!