I didn’t read the report, but first things first.  Since this is climate change related research, and contains a critique of the science of climate change, the first thing you want to know is who published and who wrote the material you have posted for review.

1.       WHO published the study from an organizational perspective?  From the version you posted through the link in your comment/question, there is no indication concerning WHO published the report – as in what organization, journal or scientific body published the material.  Lacking such an indicator may be one reason to be cautious about the conclusions in this report.

 Now, if you do a little searching, you discover that the organization which did publish and sponsored this report was the Heartland Institute (on their website dated June 28th, 2017).  Now, why do you care that this report was published by the Heartland Institute?  So that I avoid making any value judgments on your part, use the website, “SOURCE WATCH” to find out. 

 So, why is this relevant -- this is not a journal article, or a book, or a report from a grant that we know has been externally reviewed.

 2.       Who are the AUTHORS of the summary article you posted?

 A.      James P. Wallace, III.  James P.  Wallace does not appear to have a google scholar page, and searching for “James P. Wallace” does not produce any studies written by an author with that name.  There is no scholar specifically identified as “James P. Wallace” on research gate.  Wallace is identified here (  http://principia-scientific.org/co2-caused-global-warming-invalidated-conclusively/) as affiliated with Jim Wallace & Associates.

B.      Joseph S. D’Aleo.  Wikipedia identifies Joseph D’Aleo as:  a certified meteorological consultant;  former director of meteorology at the Weather Channel; meteorologist at Weatherbell Analytics; and signatory of the Cornwall Alliance “Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming.” He holds an honorary PHD.  A Google Scholar search for “Joseph D’Aleo” produces several results for publications.

C.      Craig D. Idso, Ph.D., Geography.  Founder and former president, and current Chair of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming.  Wikipedia notes that “his main focus is on the environmental benefits of carbon dioxide.”  This source (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/17/heartland-institute-fresh-scrutiny-tax) suggests that Idso was receiving $ 11,600 a month from the Heartland Institute.  Idso’s has more than two dozen publications associated with his name on Google Scholar.

Absolutely agree with you sir Michael J. Lynch. Authenticity of the data is very essential. I don't exactly know the source of this report, but i found many articles citing and mentioning this documents. since this is something hard to digest, so thought better to discuss with the experts on research gate.   

http://www.snopes.com/climatology-fraud-global-warming/

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/07/09/bombshell-climate-change-study-could-totally-dismantle-the-claim-humans-are-causing-global-warming/

http://www.icecap.us/

Kenneth:

Part of the issue is the global trend, which I believe is addressed here: Marcott, Shaun A., Jeremy D. Shakun, Peter U. Clark, and Alan C. Mix. "A reconstruction of regional and global temperature for the past 11,300 years." science 339, no. 6124 (2013): 1198-1201.

Your comments introduce the issue of temperature at the local/regional level.

Isn't there a difference between local or regional temperatures and global temperature trends?

Don't more localized conditions affect how climate change affects local regions?

Don't some place have very elevated temperature effects, or other weather condition effects that have been linked to climate change even using localized data measures? 

Isn't there research addressing this issue? E.g., Alexander, L. V., X. Zhang, T. C. Peterson, J. Caesar, B. Gleason, A. M. G. Klein Tank, M. Haylock et al. 2006. "Global observed changes in daily climate extremes of temperature and precipitation." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 111, no. D5;  Brohan, Phillip, John J. Kennedy, Ian Harris, Simon FB Tett, and Phil D. Jones. 2006. "Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: A new data set from 1850." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 111, no. D12.

Isn't there also research indicating that regional effects may appear in different forms depending upon some of the specific additional assessments made?  EG He, Feng, Steve J. Vavrus, John E. Kutzbach, William F. Ruddiman, Jed O. Kaplan, and Kristen M. Krumhardt. 2014. "Simulating global and local surface temperature changes due to Holocene anthropogenic land cover change." Geophysical Research Letters 41, no. 2: 623-631.

Don't some studies addressing the issue of regional variability over time, indicating that their is less expected regional variation over time, and that this should be measured rather than just referring to the gross cross time change? Eg., Huntingford, Chris, Philip D. Jones, Valerie N. Livina, Timothy M. Lenton, and Peter M. Cox. "No increase in global temperature variability despite changing regional patterns." Nature 500, no. 7462 (2013): 327.

Don't you have to consider the broader empirical studies of temperature change in a more global context rather than show a few images of temperature differences and assert that these indicate, perhaps, the absence of global climate change?

The "study" isn't peer reviewed. One can guess why the authors choose to avoid having their references and conclusions verified by peers.

Likely "Nonsense" would be the main reviewer comment. There is no evidence presented for the claims made. Global average estimate calculations have been changed over time as reported in peer-reviewed publications. There is no actual consideration of these revisions or proof of any of them being wrong. It is just an unsubstantiated critique.

As to a lack of ‘peer review’ there is this quote, available in Wikipedia, by Richard Horten, editor of the Lancet “But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.”

 Changes to GAST numbers obtained from surface measurements certainly raise questions as to current validity of that data. However, the linear trend of UAH data 2002-to-now shows an uptrend of 1.26 K/century.

The science of thermalization (of thermal EMR) and the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecule energy explain why CO2 does not now, has never had and will never have a significant effect on climate.

 Water vapor, a ghg, has made the planet warm enough for life as we know it. WV increased fairly slowly until about 1960. Since then it has been increasing at about 1.5% per decade and is now about 8% higher than it was in 1960. The still-rising water vapor (WV) is rising about three times as fast as expected from water temperature increase alone (feedback, water temperature from HadCRUT4). The rising WV coincides with rising irrigation, especially spray irrigation on fields and lawns. The warming (perhaps explaining the UAH temperature rise) is welcome (countering the average global cooling which would otherwise be occurring as a result of declining net effect of ocean cycles and a declining proxy which is the time-integral of SSN anomalies) but the added WV increases the risk of precipitation related flooding. How much of recent flooding (with incidences reported world wide) is simply bad luck in the randomness of weather and how much is because of the ‘thumb on the scale’ of added water vapor? Detailed assessment of this is at globalclimatedrivers2

Dan, just like "the study" in question your claims are unsubstantiated and unreferenced.

Peer-review isn't flawless, but no better system has been found to prevent nonsense from flooding scientific literature.

Who has measured and modelled this increase in water in the atmosphere and what did they offer as explanation for the increase?

I got nothing to do with any of the organisations and media mentioned.

Kenneth got too much sun, again.

Kenneth:

Question....where is the quote you provide citing Bjurstrom and Polk from?  I have Bjurstrom and Polk (B&P), which contains the percentiles you site, but not the rest of the discussion you pasted.  As I understand B&P, they were analyzing the academic disciplines in which cited journals were housed, arguing that perhaps IPCC results are skewed by referring to literatures in different field different, and that this was important from a policy perspective (ie., if, for  example,  economic literature was under-represented, then IPCC discussions related to economic policy might be limited). 

While B&P refer only to referred journals, they do not identify the sources of the excluded literature, which as your quote notes, can generate a potentially long list of sources.  Some of those sources could also be peer reviewed (e.g., grant findings; technical reports; book chapters....), so I was just wondering if the source from which you took the quote discusses this in greater detail.

Thanks,

Mike

Kenneth: Two claims of lies in just 3 sentences. Will there be any evidence for any of them?

It seems very much your post before that was a personal attach.

Henrik:

I don't know if this proves a previous point about water vapors and climate change, and simply because you asked, I found myself interested in this issue, and looked it up and found the sources listed below.  I can't comment on the full range of the implications of those studies, but it seems that they suggest that water vapor and carbon dioxide interact with respect to the effect on temperature.  In the last reference listed, Held and Soden state they address possible reasons this issue have not been more widely addressed in climate research. I can't evaluate those clams.  I am just posting these references since they seem related, and not to take any particular position on this issue, which is beyond the scope of my knowledge and interests at this point.

Solomon, Susan, Karen H. Rosenlof, Robert W. Portmann, John S. Daniel, Sean M. Davis, Todd J. Sanford, and Gian-Kasper Plattner. "Contributions of stratospheric water vapor to decadal changes in the rate of global warming." Science 327, no. 5970 (2010): 1219-1223. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219

Randel, William J., Fei Wu, Samuel J. Oltmans, Karen Rosenlof, and Gerald E. Nedoluha. "Interannual changes of stratospheric water vapor and correlations with tropical tropopause temperatures." Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 61, no. 17 (2004): 2133-2148.

Boucher, O., G. Myhre, and A. Myhre. "Direct human influence of irrigation on atmospheric water vapour and climate." Climate Dynamics 22, no. 6-7 (2004): 597-603.

Held, Isaac M., and Brian J. Soden. "Water vapor feedback and global warming." Annual review of energy and the environment 25, no. 1 (2000): 441-475.

Kenneth:

Thank you.  I read parts of the chapter you linked (too many projects).  I think there is an interesting point raise in the paragraph after the quote you provided, which to summarize says something like this -- IPCC researchers have recommended that only referred materials be employed, but the chapter authors point out this could be an important source of bias depending on the kind of question being examined because, for example, this would exclude knowledge bases that might not be in referred materials, such as Indigenous knowledge of local environments.  A few paragraphs later, the authors refer to a questionnaire (no cite) used by an IPCC Working Group Committee asking -- I'm guessing, because this is not clear -- people working on the IPCC to identify the kinds of unpublished materials they felt should be excluded.  These included "Blogs, newspaper articles, press releases, advocacy group reports, and proprietary data were thought by many to be inappropriate." (p. 17).

The authors essentially argue that the IPCC policies on these issues are not clear, and require further attention.

The problem, as the authors note, is how to do this....and state: "Although all reasonable points of view should be considered, they need not be given equal weight or even described fully in an assessment report." (p 18).

Here, of course, one could argue over the word "reasonable".  And on this point the authors essentially say you have to leave that to professional judgement.

Now, a bit later, we get to an important point in terms of reviews of IPCC in Table 2.1.

That Table shows that there were 22,205 "expert" comments made of the entire first draft, and then 10,826 "expert" comments and 4,407 "government" comments on the second draft.  I'm not sure how many individual "experts" or individual people from "governments" produced those comments.  But that's around 35,000 comments...now, to give away a possible study, you could take all these comments, and if it is known WHO (individuals) produced them, you could do a textual analysis of comments, determine what kinds of comments are made by what kinds of experts, and then get an idea of how comments from different specialties and different groups are represented in the IPCC review process.

That said, what all of the discussion here is about is the social construction of knowledge, and there is a very well known book by Berger and Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (1966) published on this issue.  I say very important because the book has been ranked as the 5th most important book in sociology written during the 20th century.  In any event, the question raised in some climate change debates is exactly about this issue, which is addressed in the sociology of knowledge literature, about WHOSE view OUGHT to count.  Now, you can change the nature of that question, and instead of it being about whose view ought to count, you can make it into an empirical question of whose view actually counts.  The empirical question (the 2nd one) doesn't address the first one (whose view should count).  So, this means you have to come up with some way of explaining why some views both SHOULD count (philosophical) and why some views end up counting (also philosophical, but its based on examining data about WHO does count, 2nd question). 

Now, the problems becomes this . . . explaining who does count will ALWAYS be contentious as long as some portion of a community (in this case, we could say scientists who study climate change) ALREADY have disagreements about knowledge and conclusions.  As Berger and Luckman point out, these contentions may occur because people/individuals may have different values they are representing as knowledge, or they may be associated with specific groups that promote certain values.  And so, the big problem here is trying to figure out whether the knowledge being produced reflects values that are not empirically grounded.  Absent some way of definitively making that evaluation, all social knowledge is said to be some form of social construction.  Where there are debates, there are mechanisms for solving those debates at different levels (e.g., within a professional association; or through a government mechanism).  Even IF the debates are "solved" through some form of adjudication, those who "lose" may not accept the outcome, meaning that the conflict over knowledge was not necessarily remedies, and that there will continue to be battles about knowledge, and continued efforts to sociologically construct or reconstruct or deconstruct knowledge (here sociological simply means we are examining acts that occur in social mechanisms or through social interactions).

Anyway, I have now side-tracked us into a bigger question....but its an interesting question....

This study corroborates the perception that GAST data from surface measurements has been changed to where its value as a measure of climate change is substantially compromised.

The science of thermalization of EMR and the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecule energy (EMR absorbed by CO2 is effectively redirected to the lower-energy absorb/emit bands of WV) explain why CO2 has no significant effect on average global temperature. The 8% increase in water vapor since 1960 is countering the temperature decline that would otherwise be occurring. 

 Dan:

You have said "this study" a few times.  Do you mean the one this post is about?

On your point about water vapor, Solomon et al (2010), in Sience (327, 5970) sum up their findings in the abstract to their article as follows:

Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000–2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% as compared to estimates neglecting this change. These findings show that stratospheric water vapor is an important driver of decadal global surface climate change.

Mic - "This study" in the first paragraph of my post refers to the June, 2017, Wallace et al report.

The global average water vapor data comes from NASA/RSS satellite based TPA (total precipitable water) measurements reported numerically monthly on line. I show the data graphically thru June 2017 in Fig 3 of my blog "globalclimatedrivers2". The trend is 1.5% per decade. In my analysis, this is incorporated into an equation with two other factors which calculates average global temperature that matches measured 98% 1895-2015.

I am aware of other water vapor data but discount it as being not global average and not recent. 

Ken - 'Government scientists' probably means warmists at NASA. They change the 'measured' data, then use that data to make statements like "warming at an unprecedented rate". Multiple studies have shown that the 'changes' result in the illusion of steeper warming. I monitor 5 global temperature data sources as well as other data such as annual low temperatures for extended time, comparison of measurements with GCM predictions, etc. All sources need to be challenged for credibility. 

UAH satellite data 2002 thru June, 2017 shows an uptrend of 1.26 K per century and it is currently coming down from an el Nino. This is not at all 'unprecedented'. The temperature downtrend that would otherwise be occurring (quiet sun and net ocean cycles downtrend) is being countered by the 1.5% per decade increase in water vapor (about 8% increase since 1960). My calcs show the downtrend prevailing (barely) until 2020. After that depends on whether the sun stays blank or not. In either case, GW is over.

I'm guessing most climate scientists don't agree that global warming is over....

Lewandowsky, Stephan, James S. Risbey, and Naomi Oreskes. (2016). "The “pause” in global warming: Turning a routine fluctuation into a problem for science." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 97, no. 5: 723-733.

Abstract: There has been much recent published research about a putative “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming. We show that there are frequent fluctuatons in the rate of warming around a longer-term warming trend, and that there is no evidence that identifies the recent period as unique or particularly unusual. In confirmation, we show that the notion of a pause in warming is considered to be misleading in a blind expert test. Nonetheless, the most recent fluctuation about the longer-term trend has been regarded by many as an explanatory challenge that climate science must resolve. This departs from long-standing practice, insofar as scientists have long recognized that the climate fluctuates, that linear increases in CO2 do not produce linear trends in global warming, and that 15-yr (or shorter) periods are not diagnostic of long-term trends. We suggest that the repetition of the “warming has paused” message by contrarians was adopted by the scientific community in its problem-solving and answer-seeking role and has led to undue focus on, and mislabeling of, a recent fluctuation. We present an alternative framing that could have avoided inadvertently reinforcing a misleading claim.

Or...

Rahmstorf, Stefan, Grant Foster, and Niamh Cahill. (2017). "Global temperature evolution: recent trends and some pitfalls." Environmental Research Letters 12, no. 5: 054001.

Abstract: We show that this recent streak of record heat does not in itself provide statistical evidence for an acceleration of global warming, nor was it preceded by a 'slowdown period' with a significantly reduced rate of warming. Rather, the data are fully consistent with a steady global warming trend since the 1970s, superimposed with random, stationary, short-term variability. All recent variations in short-term trends are well within what was to be expected, based on the observed warming trend and the observed variability from the 1970s up to the year 2000. We discuss some pitfalls of statistical analysis of global temperatures which have led to incorrect claims of an unexpected or significant warming slowdown.

At this point, I can agree that there are different social constructions or perceptions of the climate/temperature trend, and that those different views are based on opposing social constructions of that trend -- whether they are made by scientists, political bodies, the public, think tanks, etc. -- and that as a result there is debate about the idea of a pause in global warming. Those debates may or may not be about evidence, BUT the problem in a social construction frame of reference is that different groups/people are constructing the evidence differently, and there is no solution to that particular problem.  The only way that problem (conflicting social constructions) gets solve is that all of the various groups agree that there is one solution to defining the problem -- for example, that a pause is defined by specific parameters, X-1, X-2, X-3....X-n. And that doesn't appear to be forthcoming.

I think a determined study could support the dismantling of global warming claims should it be adopted by those with the legitimate legislative power and intent to discredit over 70 years of  global warming empirical data collation methods. Which it seems this simple report is attempting to do. I think defending GAST as not valid does result in an endangerment that needs a stronger evidential voice.  In the change debate, this message is only one of many from those who seem to not desire to sustain our future on earth.  However, as USA policy analysis does not solely rely on scientific evidence to enact what groups of people may deem ‘right’ for national citizenship, I'd say the influence of this report lies within its undersigned 'support' group.  Their agreement of which I think clearly defines the political intent of their contribution to the ongoing discussion about global warming; as opposed to dropping a bombshell that could potentially silence the community with its profoundness. A profoundness that I think the report severely lacks.

Kenneth:

Question -- in terms of "changed" the data, do you mean the adjustments that are applied to "correct" for effect such as El Nino. etc.,? 

What do you make of the following paper which showed results for unadjusted and adjusted temperature? (The results for both show similar trends, but the trend is enhanced by adjustment). Would you discount the adjusted results?  Or is this paper important because it shows adjusted and unadjusted rates look similar?

Foster, Grant, and Stefan Rahmstorf. (2011). "Global temperature evolution 1979–2010." Environmental Research Letters 6, no. 4: 044022.

Kenneth, my question was about your interpretation of the study I referenced which showed trends for both adjusted and unadjusted data, and that these trends are similar, with both showing warming.  What is your opinion of the specific results from that study?  For example, should that be the way scientists show the results so readers can see the unadjusted and adjusted measures? Wouldn't doing that address one of the issues that is raised about adjustments causing the ffect to emerge?

Kenneth:

Ok,this is a long one....

You're not really addressing the question.  You made a claim -- evidence for global warming is essentially "produced" by scientists who change the raw temperature data, and posted a chart that supposedly showed some trend you assert was a refutation of the adjusted data.  I then showed you a study where the authors used BOTH the unadjusted and adjusted data, which showed BOTH the unadjusted and adjusted data showed a warming trend.  I then asked your opinion about whether this kind of research helped solved the climate controversy -- and that this should be how these studies are performed.  After all, the authors used the unadjusted data, which you suggested was preferable. But, you didn't answer that question, you instead posted some other issue about data, diverting the discussion onto something else.  I'm not that easily distracted.

In any event, your discussion makes it appear that when temperatures are adjusted, it done just to create a global warming trends, which would mean the whole thing is a big fat conspiracy, as suggested by Congressman Lamar Hunt of Texas, who has tried to get an investigation of NOAA scientists underway.  Not that a congress-person from Texas would have any interest in climate change.....Anyway, the adjustments involve the use of scientifically relevant issues.  For example -- a weather station is moved.  Well, now its no longer measuring the temperature in the same location any more, BUT the data is being reported AS IF it was coming from the same location.  So, some effort is made to adjust the measure to reflect the change in the station's location. Seems reasonable. Some of the stations changed equipment, and those changes affected the accuracy of the measurements, since we no longer had to rely on someone eye-balling a mercury thermometer, and now had digial read outs.  SO, an adjustment can be made for the difference between an estimate of the temperature under the old method, and the more accurate measure. In some weather stations, over time, the data was collected at different times of the day.  So, over time, the data isn't directly comparable.  The temperature at 8 AM is going to be somewaht different than the temperature at 11 AM, so that should be adjusted. Some of the temperature data is adjusted in ways that LOWER the temperature reading, such as when the weather station is in an urban heat island.  That would seem to increase the probability of rejecting a climate change hypothesis. 

Again, if you look at NOAA trend data, they show BOTH raw and adjusted data trends -- and the one I am thinking of is the data that starts in 1961, but there is also a graph that starts around 1880. If you look at the trend in the two lines -- the raw data and the adjusted data -- they are very similar.  That means the adjustment IS NOT changing the trend, it just moves the entire estimate up, without altering the trend.

I know what comes next in this discussion....but look at the surface and satellite temperature data. When the satellite data was first used, it showed a different warming trend than the surface temperature. Well, re-analysis shows that the original research ADJUSTED the temperatures, and the adjustment procedures were flawed (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/309/5740/1548). In fact, Christy, who was one of the authors of an earlier paper using satellite data that set out the claim that the data contradicted the surface data, was coauthor of a paper in 2006 which basically said that earlier studies which showed a discrepancy in surface temperature and satellite data were due to errors in measurements and adjustments to satellite data, and that new methods for correcting the satellite data (which are not direct temperature measurements and need to be converted into temperature measures; and to account for different sensing equipment on satellites that produce different results as a consequence of the equipment) now eliminate that discrepancy.  The arguments for the adjustment are all well-reasoned and scientific, so why is there still reference made to the earlier studies which had methodological errors?  

It would seem to be that the only reason to refer to the earlier studies which have been methodologically critiqued is to attempt to socially construct a position about climate change that refutes its existence.

Climate change is a process. The temperature in any given year (e.g., 1998) doesn't indicate that the trend changed -- its a trend, so you can't use an anomaly in a trend to dismiss the trend.

Sure, scientific studies are not perfect, and as you say, we do the best with what is available. We can only predict changes in the future (as you suggest, one made in 2000) from what is known in 2000, and some things change.  Things such as international climate agreements can change how things are produced, decreasing ecological stress, perhaps, and changing the warming trend (I am not suggesting this actually happened, I am just providing an example of something that could be considered hypothetically) .  Scientists don't know the effect of those changes, and don't know that those changes (e.g. international agreements) will occur in the future beyond their data.  They use what they have to assess what might be going on.

I guess if we really wanted to know the answer, we could create a small artificial world, somehow, and tracks what happens to the environment there when we manipulate certain conditions, and keep all the other features constant.  We could then accept those results because they were experimental, but this doesn't necessary seem feasible -- or it could be, I'm just not smart enough to know. Certainly, there are relevant laboratory experiments on these issues, such as measuring differences in retention of heat by different columns of gas. WE KNOW CO-2 traps heat.....those experiments date back to Tyndall's mid-19th century experiments. So unless a whole lot of scientists have been wrong about these things -- and if they have, you are essentially arguing we know nothing about the world around us -- someone has to specifically explain why more CO-2 in the atmosphere would fail to cause a rise in temperature. If CO-2 is trapping heat, how is that not warming the planet? Well, it could be the heat gets radiated into space, but that can be measured. Recent studies have shown a strong correlation between CO-2 emissions and temperature since the 1960s, which is logical when we also look at corresponding production/economic trends indicating much more significant CO-2 emissions historically. When you produce things -- when you use chemical and fossil fuel labor -- we know the outcomes -- heat and pollution, and a change in system entropy.  Unless that heat and pollution goes somewhere, it changes the basic nature of the system if the volume of pollution/heat surpasses the ability of the ecosystem to act as a sink, or can't be radiated outside the ecosystem. So, why should we be surprised that polluting the global ecosystem -- which includes producing CO2 -- changes the ecosystem? Oh, I know, earlier in history there were higher CO-2 levels.  Yes, and earlier in history the planet was not inhabited by humans, who changed the global ecosystem by cutting down and converting forests, producing and laying cement and highways, etc., etc., etc., and consuming the ecosystem in ways that helps promote ecological instability and prevents the production of some kind of climate equilibrium (which can changes voertime, as Lovelock famously argues).

In short, it seems like you have to reject a great deal of what science has discovered to accept that climate change is not possible.

Kenneth:

Glad we have continued this dialogue and that some things have been clarified.

Now, you raise another interesting point which is #1, about prosecutions (I am only aware of those who have tried to do so by targeting climate scientists, and have to claim ignorance about suits against skeptics), because that is a really unfortunate use of law. 

# 2. Does the scientific evidence justify spending money to mitigate climate change? I can give you my opinion.  First, we to accept the idea that anthropogenic carbon emissions are a form of pollution.  Second, we have to understand that the processes that generate carbon pollution link up with other forms of pollution. And, there's a lot of other kinds of pollution associated with production processes that generate CO-2, but that leads to emitting large quantities of pollutants into ecosystems.  Here, without the need to review scientific literature in which there are also debates about whether being exposed to toxic waste is harmful especially with respect to disease production, I'm guess we can agree that its not healthy to be exposed to toxic waste, and no one wants to be exposed to toxic waste.  Anyway, spending money on climate change reduction policies has the secondary benefit of improving (reducing) the production of pollutants and their emissions into ecosystems.  So, even if you could argue that spending on climate change policy might not be relevant IF it has no real effect on or relationship to the trend in climate change, you still have a left-over secondary benefit that results from reducing ecological pollution and reducing all the numerous health effects for humans and nonhumans those pollutants generate.

Kenneth, I agree, political intent should not enter into objective analysis nor discredit such analysis. My point entirely. 

Kenneth:

I have to disagree that the scientists being targeted are skeptics. What about the case that was filed against Michael Mann, which tried to argue that he took funds fraudulently in a case filed by the Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli?  There was also a case filed against University of Virginia specifically referring to Mann as well by the American Traditions Institute (http://caselaw.findlaw.com/va-supreme-court/1663939.html). Mann later counter-sued.

This link shows a civil suit filed against "climate alarmists enterprise" (the term used by the person filing the suit in an interview)  https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/12/exclusive-climate-skeptic-files-sweeping-rico-lawsuit-against-most-all-climate-related-ngos-and-some-individuals/

There are MANY freedom of information act suits filed to get climate scientists data.

But I don't see any actual law suits filed against skeptics.  Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places....

There's a good deal of harassment of climate scientists. In 2015, as a member of a Florida University and therefore a state employee, I received an email noting the state had banned the use of the term climate change, global warming, etc., by state workers, and in state documents.  You can read all the articles on the internet for yourself. But the ban went as far as this: a doctoral student at University of Florida interviewed by the media noted that the Florida Department of Health, and was told to remove references to climate change from her dissertation. So, is this kind of state policy ok?

http://fcir.org/2015/03/08/in-florida-officials-ban-term-climate-change/

I'm not conflating carbon emission and pollution. What I stated was that industrial practice that generate co-2 also generate a wide range of harmful toxins that get released into the environment, so that if you spent money reducing CO-2 emissions, and somehow that didn't matter, there was a secondary positive effect -- the reduction of pollution.  You can extend this argument to oil production, coal-fired power plants etc., and there are a number of research papers on these subjects.

"Peer-review isn't flawless, but no better system has been found to prevent nonsense from flooding scientific literature".

A better system could be found that doesn't censor real science in the name of preventing nonsense. A suggestion: Before rejecting a paper, all reviewers must cite the violations of science and what data is flawed and/ or improperly used. The author should be able to rebut any "violations".