Irreconcilable Differences

tonight i made the mistake of going to happy hour drinks with my one super right wing conservative friend. i was having a great time as the evening progressed, laughing at funny events from the past (he's a former coworker), as he's a fun loving and easy going guy. i was thinking all along how nice it was that i was capable of having a friend who i had such core differences with but who i could hang out with and just forget about all that stuff.
WRONG.

i should've known when he picked me up in his big new SUV that some horrible climate-related debate would surface, but i couldn't have known how ridiculous it would be. here's the debate in a nutshell (and it didn't come up in the context of his SUV, but rather in the context of his trip to phuket and discussions about hurricane katrina): me citing recent basically irrefutable studies by independent expert panels as to the alarming rate of global warming, and him clinging unwaveringly to the facts he learned in "elementary school" (by his own admission!) that everything is "cyclical" and that the change in climate should not alarm anyone. when i finally got through to him that the whole purpose of the scientific panel was to test the cyclical theory, and that they had disproved it, his response was, "ignorance is bliss." so he basically admitted that even if he did believe the panel's findings, he didn't care.

on the drive home, he tried to make peace with me and let bygones be bygones. one part of me really and truly did want to, because one part of me really and truly likes the guy. but a much stronger part of me doesn't. how can you hang out and have fun happy time with a person who has admitted he is essentially responsible for the demise of the environment and doesn't give a shit? if someone has the answer, please--...