Good for you. Far better to accept at face value the op-ed quackings of an aged naysaying contrarian who doesn't even work in the field, and might possibly be in the pocket of big oil or other industries rather than the consensus opinion of literally tens of thousands of other scientists.
There is nothing in what was posted that took the points made by this scientist and showed why they were wrong.

All that was presented was a call to authority and ridicule.

Claim to authority? The only authority in evidence is the consensus of the vast majority of scientists working in the field.
Science is not democratic. Things are voted on and the idea that gets the most votes is the one that describes reality.

Claiming we should believe a hypothesis because it has consensus would have lead us, at one point in time, to believe the earth was flat and that there was not direct relation between matter and energy.

Consensus, like settled science, is the antipathy of science.

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." --Thomas Jefferson