I think he looked at a bunch of scenarios from the existing literature and ties together a story from the worst of all possible outcomes. His scenario could happen, but, by the same logic, so could a mostly benign scenario. The likely outcome is somewhere in the middle
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It’s not about scary or not scary. It’s about probable scenarios. And Wallace-Wells chose the worst, which also happen to be the least probable. Which is fine, but that’s storytelling, not science
You did say that the catastrophizing is supported by research. It is. But the exact same research yields a whole bunch of other scenarios as well. And most of those non-catastrophic scenarios are more likely