[rayiner]

What bias?

> Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment” and Green Book Award Winner. He is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Washington Post

Additionally, the author cites and links to specific facts in IPCC and UN reports regarding population displacement, sea levels, crop yields, and economic impact.

[NeedMoreTea]

I would rather listen to the IPCC direct from their reports, or via less biased reporting than to Michael Shellenberger. He is consistently pro nuclear, a registered lobbyist, and particularly anti renewables - often simply making stuff up to find problems in their use.

Thus he often leaves me with feeling that I have to check every citation back to source to see the part he didn't quote, or the preceding and following sentence. He has such a clear agenda I find him hard to trust on any topic.

[rayiner]

He’s linking to the IPCC and UN reports he’s citing so you can just look it up.

Being anti-nuclear is a pretty good indication that you don’t think climate change is really a serious problem. France has a CO2 footprint much lower than its neighbors because it’s grid is heavily nuclear. (Right now, we don’t have the battery technology for a fully renewable grid, so countries like Germany must backup renewables with coal and gas. Also, it makes no sense to shut down nuclear plants that have already been paid for to build renewables. If climate change was really pressing, you’d keep the nuclear plant running, build the renewable resource, and shut down a coal plant instead.)

[NeedMoreTea]

Being obstinately anti-nuclear can be, though it pays to recognise the absurd costs that tend to come with nuclear electricity when you consider full lifecycle including decommissioning and waste handling. Right now we can bring renewables online cheaper and faster, though we are probably best served with a mix of both if nuclear costs can be constrained. Germany's move from already existing nuclear whilst using lignite is madness.

Being a pro-nuclear zealot who feels solar, wind, and hydro essentially has no place is as damaging and unhelpful, with as much of an agenda as anyone pro-fossil or believing climate heating isn't a problem. The man has a one issue agenda, read all his writings accordingly. shrug :)

[ptah]

that is still a blog post containing his personal opinion

[rayiner]

It’s an article (he interviews someone) collecting facts from sources that represent the scientific consensus.

[ptah]

not as authoritative as the nature journal article that OP is based on: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0

it is clearly based on a consensus

[rayiner]

The conclusion of the Nature article is not based on scientific consensus.

> This "cascade" of changes sparked by global warming could threaten the existence of human civilisations.

That's not supported by the underlying IPCC report (a 2018 publication that's one of the latest statements of consensus science): https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/06/SR15...

While the IPCC talks about "tipping points," it does not mean "cascades" that "threaten the existence of human civilization." It's important to understand that what the IPCC means by "tipping points" is certain irreversible changes in things like sea ice coverage, or collapse of maize crops in "certain areas." Those things might be bad, but they don't imply "runaway climate change" or collapse of global agricultural systems, or anything like that. See Table 3.7.

The aggregate effect of these local effects is estimated in box 3.6. For the United States, it says:

> The results for the baseline no-policy case indicate that economic damages along median temperature change and median damages (median-median) reach 4.5% of GDP by 2100, with an uncertainty range of 2.5% and 8.5% resulting from different combinations of temperature change and damages. Avoided damages from achieving a 1.5°C temperature limit along the median-median case are nearly 4% (range 2–7%) by 2100.

That's the bottom-line figure quoted in the article I linked. Avoided damages from keeping climate change to 1.5C are 2-7% of GDP by 2100. That means significant disruptions to the structure of our economy in response to climate change will almost certainly cost us more than what we avoid in damage from climate change.

The last section of the Nature article says that in the authors' view, the aggregate effect of these tipping points could be worse than the IPCC projects. (Note that the above GDP figures do attempt to account for tipping point effects.) That may or may not be true, but that conclusion is not part of the IPCC consensus.