"retired plant scientist" claim

[u/srmcmahon]

This was in a letter to the editor locally:

"There is no real evidence that global warming is due to atmospheric CO2. Controlled experiments indicate that the addition of CO2 in air up to 10,000 ppm have little or no effect on warming under atmospheric conditions."

Entire letter is here: https://www.inforum.com/opinion/letters/letter-co2-and-global-warming

I was going to write a comment. I think he might be talking about experiments where they added CO2 to experimental plant plots (but don't remember the mechanics). "Under atmospheric conditions"--means exactly what?

Can you help me out here? I have not figured out how to phrase a search that brings me to what he is referring to.

[u/BigMax]

So there's a problem when debating anti-climate change people.

The problem is that they aren't arguing in good faith to begin with. There is NO science that says we aren't experiencing climate change as a result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. That science simply doesn't exist.

So this person is intentionally lying, cherry picking data, willfully misinterpreting data, or some combination of the three. It's hard to argue against that, because he has a deep seated desire to believe what he believes. It's like arguing against the existence of God to someone deeply religious. There's no facts or logic you can bring up.

Also - the most skilled anti-science people are going to just throw questions at you until you give up. They will say "here's a fact" and you will say "no, that's wrong, here is proof." Then they will say "fine, here's another fact" and you will say "nope, wrong again, here is proof." Then they will do it again, and again. And we aren't perfect experts, so one day he will say "here's a fact" and you will probably figure that he's wrong but you won't have the knowledge to refute it in that moment, and he will claim victory.

There's a great example of that with holocaust deniers. One random thing they bring up is something like "so they said the gas chambers were built to kill people in WW2. But the paint that has been sampled and found in those chambers wasn't manufactured until 1953!!! So it's a hoax!!!" And you can't possibly know anything about what paint was sampled from where, and when various paint was manufactured. So they say "ah ha!! See?? You can't disprove my paint logic, therefore the holocaust was a hoax!!!"

Anyway, in short, when you argue against someone invested in lies, it's hard to be the one who has to always speak the truth, when the other person can just invent fiction on their side.