I'd be cautious about taking Shellenberger's conclusions as fact. He's not a climate scientist. His writings will basically lead to denialism rather than action and moderation [0]

For example he says to save the environment we should be producing more meat - this is in complete contrast to this 5 year Oxford University study [1].

This is a good summary (by a climate scientist) arguing against Shellenberger's claims.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/07/shelle...

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[0] https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/m...

[1] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environme...

And here's a long list of failed apocalyptic predictions by scientists: https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-poca...

Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that by 2005, it would become clear that the Internet's effect on the economy is no greater than the fax machine's.

Climate scientists can model the climate to a certain degree but they're not all-knowing oracles. They are not qualified to predict future societal collapses, wars or even famines. The idea that a gradual 2.0 °C temperature rise spread over decades would necessarily cause such things just doesn't pass the smell test.

I'm sorry but in the face of an overwhelming consensus amongst scientists I think we'll need more than a blog post full of unsupported claims if anybody is to reconsider their position.

Fascinating. They claim to have data from respectable sources and yet don't link them. They only link news stories of people talking about negative effects of climate change and an Amazon link to their book.

Well, for all we know it doesn't exist yet. I personally dislike the idea of calling it a catastrophe. It will drive large cultural shifts against our will.