Hey, I read the guy's bio and a few descriptions of the book. Seems reasonable and legit to me, if a bit of a tangent.
'Alarmism' is a two-edged sword. It will mobilize some people that hear it, and raise the skepticism of others.
I would LOVE to live in a world where science and fact-driven public policy were well trusted by the population. There would be no NEED for alarmism. Scientists would collect the data, make a case (which would get stronger over time). Leaders making public policy would balance the risks/costs associated with an intervention against the risks/costs of NOT intervening. The costs of intervening/solutions will generally decrease over time, and the certainty of risk of NOT intervening will INCREASE over time.
At some point, the risk will become obvious, and the solutions will become stupid cheap. And then (or a little before) the solutions would be scaled by govt program/incentive or both.
And at no time in that process would 'alarmism' be required. A cadre of trained scientists and public policy experts would be slaving away exchanging data, ideas, and statistical models, out of public view, as people go on about their normal lives. And then get told they are going to be buying EVs over the next decade, or mini-splits, or HPWHs. Or solar farms will be built outside of town, or off-shore wind farms.
No drama llamas required. People would just shrug and keep on keeping on. Bc they would **trust** that the scientists and policy wonks had done the math right.
This is basically what happened with the Ozone hole and CFCs in the 1970s. Score one for trust and sanity! CFCs actually would have resulted in an uninhabitable Earth (by now). Yikes! Scary! Alarm! But we avoided it. We didn't have people up in arms protesting about peeling aerosol cans from their cold dead fingers, of threatening to shoot the govt people when they came to take their AC units away.
Yeah, I miss that. But of course the CFC problem was 'Easy' compared to climate change. And the 'trust' of scientists and policy wonks has been (intentionally) eroded by various politicians since the 80s and 90s.
And so Climate Change is politicized. And progress is two steps forward, one step back. With a lot of yelling and protesting and counter-protesting. And alarmism is the result of that. And I think alarmism doesn't really sway the skeptics, but it does demoralize the believers.
So maybe the book is about that. The real solution is still political. Get rid of politicians that undermine trust in science and fact-based public policy. And then get to work.