I’ve debunked Shellenberger too many times to bother debunking him again.
I used to think that his heart was in the right place, but that he’d misplaced his brain due to confirmation bias. Now it appears that he’s on the side of the delayers, possibly because the only technology he likes, nuclear, is crap for climate action.
I have a filter I apply to things. If they mention Greta Thunberg negatively once, never mind three times, I tend to think that the person writing the piece is an asshole. Gee, guess how many times Shellenberger cites Thunberg? That filter is especially strong for middle-aged white men.
He’s not terribly wrong in his facts, he’s just tone deaf and providing feed and caring to delayers. The reality is that the UN IPCC 1.5 degree report makes it clear that we have 11 years to take very significant action to minimize massive impacts from global warming, and Shellenberger is pretending like that’s not a concern, and that the people repeating that message are alarmists.
He’s just spiraling down the toilet. Not sure why. As I’ve said, he became pot-committed to nuclear a decade ago and has refused to let go of that.
Note: my personal policy is to block and mute climate change deniers as well as other science deniers. Yours should be too.
A bit of reading on his other malapropisms: