Yeah, there's no argument, but there's calling it a "debunking effort" right out of the gate. I think that's called a bald assertion? Anyway, that there's a claim, but no argument to support it, doesn't make it neutral. That it's slipped in right at the beginning and then not returned to and elaborated on doesn't make it better. To instead pick one sentence from the first Google result of the university the author is at isn't exactly checking the quality of the source, either, that just removes it further from that slipped in bald assertion and the article itself.

> Like it or not … when an institution positions themselves like that, it makes me wonder a little bit about whether they really can support unbiased environmental science

Maybe the university can't, maybe the author pulls it off regardless. Has anyone ever seen someone do good work at a shitty company? It wouldn't quite work to say "can anyone tell me if someone who studies or teaches at a university with a questionable line of PR on website can possibly be unbiased about environmental science?", the answer is something like "of course that's possible, to the extent that any human can be free of bias.. to give a useful answer maybe tell me what person and more importantly what research are you thinking of?", which would bring us to a point at which the comment never arrived.

But if someone just "wonders", then it's supposedly not okay to ask them to make up their mind before they post, or at least say what is keeping them from doing so. It's like "I'm not entirely sure I'm convinced most people would agree that" and other phrases, it does imply something, as faintly as it may be, but with plausible deniability. Generally speaking I find that worse than even a direct false claim, which I can correct, in these instances it's like saying the emperor is naked, and people go "there is no emperor, how rude".