David Wallace-Wells

It is deeply gratifying, and deeply humbling, to see so many scientists engaging so deeply with the story.

I know, and admire, the work of many of the scientists who were surveyed. Those I'm not familiar with, I'm sure, are heroes, too.

But I would also suggest looking beyond Climate Feedback's top-line summary and "scoring" of my story.

Most of the objections are to the rhetorical framing of my piece.

Nearly every response in the "Reviewer's Overall Feedback" section amounts to the charge that the story is not a reliable projection...

...of future warming but rather a worst-case scenario outlook.

That is, with all due respect, not a criticism of the science. It is a factual description of the story and its explicit goals.

We will be soon publishing an annotated version of the story showing our sourcing for everything.

Possibly, along the way, we will identify and fix a few facts.

But I hope and expect that the annotations will show that every fact deployed in the piece ...

...comes from interviews with esteemed scientists or similarly admired academic work.

Meanwhile, to these scientists quoted, and others who have criticized the basic project of my story, I would ask a few simple questions:

Is it unreasonable or irresponsible to use the IPCC's median and high-end business-as-usual estimates to consider what might happen here?

Do you think it is unreasonable or irresponsible to apply those estimates to the work of Matthew Huber and Steven Sherwood on heat stress?

Do you think it is unreasonable or irresponsible to apply those estimates to the work of Rosamond Naylor and David Battisti on agriculture?

Is it unreasonable or irresponsible to apply those estimates to the work of Solomon Hsiang and Marshall Burke on conflict and economics?

Do you believe that a world reaching even the median business-as-usual outcome, and triggering the changes those scholars have predicted...

...would be anything but devastated by them?

Do you believe, more generally, that it is unreasonable or irresponsible to inform the public ...

..of research that has appeared in the most esteemed scientific journals about plausible worst-case scenarios of climate change?