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Possibly? Of course, there's the "all models are wrong..." quote, so it would take additional caveats there. But they don't have to be bad/dishonest. They're just trying to do something that we can't do.
Because before, you had people actively arguing that climate change wasn't real(ly a problem), and there were tons of vibes/momentum to stamp that out. Now, it's come around to my position, and the vibes are more, "Yeah, you're probably right, we probably can't actually estimate damage." Maybe with some feel goods about how we can still do some things the author likes (e.g., batteries, public transit, methane, that are more or less economically viable). I think your comment is a good example of that. Similar to what I said to @quiet_NaN:
I would have never gotten something so... tame... in response a decade ago at the old old old place. That's a pretty significant shift.
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