There's Always One (at least)

I just can't get over one of the last conversations I had at TED. It
started simply enough, with handshakes and introductions and inqueries
into the other's profession. He's an app designer from LA; my badge
labels me a consultant.

"What kind of consulting?"

"Communication and design strategy."

"Give me an example."

"Executives giving keynote presentations, start-ups pitching to VCs,
the speakers here at TED. Everyone needs a story, and they need
graphics to support it. Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth is a great
example of the medium."

And then he said something weird.

"I don't buy into that extreme left-wing global warming stuff. I'm a
Republican."

Which is the sort of thing that catches you off-guard. In a kind of
how-do-I-respond-what-do-I-focus-on-does-this-person-even-live-on-the-
same-planet kind of way.

"You mean the idea of man-made climate change that every credible
scientist supports?"

"Not every one. Have you read Ayn Rand?* The economics don't work.
There's no profit in climate change. I'm not explaining it right but I
could."

I was baffled. Was this a rebuttal or some kind of tea party mashup?
Where does one start to deconstruct this? Realizing I was about ten
years too late (much like actions on climate change), I excused myself
to another venison sausage and other, saner conversation.

(BTW, he crashed a Fellows party later and tried to sell his app
services to everyone. Tres uncool.)

Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else? I mean, people
rejecting established, scientific fact because it doesn't fit with
their ideology/Glenn Beck said so? I may not encounter a lot of people
like this in my travels, but I fear they're out there in large
numbers. And they're going to fuck things up for all of us.

* Author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Libertarian darling,
though her economic philosophy has been thoroughly discredited. At
least among the reality-based.