I hadn't, was only up as far as his Kingsnorth evidence:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080910_Kingsnorth.pdf

which is an excellent summary of the scientific position I think.

I like a lot of what is in his Dear Michelle and Barack letter but have a couple of concerns:

1. He mixes in social goals which, though to my taste, will not be liked by many, particularly those on the right in the US, and I worry that bickering about those will get in the way of solving the main problem.

2. I'm really not sure about nuclear. We've had a long history of promises from the nuclear industry which haven't really been fulfilled. I'd like to see some convincing evidence that this time it's going to work. Also, I'm very cynical about the government's ability to regulate the industry properly (because I've yet to see any government regulation of any industry work well).

Still, a direct steadily and predictably rising so-many $/€/£/¥/¤·kg⁻¹ tax on all carbon emissions, collected as far upstream as possible seems to me like the fairest, simplest and least fiddlable approach. Anything else will distort the market in one way or another - resulting in either increased emissions in some areas or at least disproportionate efforts to reduce emissions where the resources to do so could have been better spent elsewhere.

That's a good link Marktime, and I agree with Mark Brinkley's views, accept about the AGW bit which I guess you already know. My reason for agreement has nothing to do with AGW, but there is a lot of common ground between the believers and non- believers. [in my case Energy Conservation and Sustainability]

Speaking generally, it seems to me that there are always digs at the so called 'deniers' Would you call those of us who are unconvinced deniers? I would say that we are merely being objective. I do not say that AGW does not exist, merely that I am not wholly convinced this it does. I think there are many in the unconvinced camp, and labelling such people as deniers does nothing to further the AGW 'cause'

I think your wrong when you say 'deniers' [ie those who are unconvinced] won't read such topics and would argue that they are more likely to do so because they are objective [that is until they dare to enter the debate and get labelled or ridiculed for doing so] It is not the topic which drives people away from interest, but the almost fanatical way in which some people employ virtually any tactic to defend their argument.

@ Mike George. Thanks for your comments. In reality I don't have a "cause" to promote. Put simply, I can't comprehend how, with so much information available on AGW from reputable and non-partisan sources, that anyone can, with good conscience, describe themselves as unconvinced. However, granted that you still haven't reached a decision, I'll ask you, (and anyone else for that matter), what would have to happen for you to reach a conclusion, one way or the other?

And further to that, if you were to agree, what would have to happen for the govenment to carry the population in accepting the conditions that are going to be necessary to limit CO2 emissions?

SInce fossil fuels are finite they will have to be replaced some time. Jim Hansen's letter goes rather a long way towards answering the points you have just made, Mike. How about just suspending your own ideas for a while and accepting that Hansen is actually right? Surely that can't do much harm, and if he is right it could do rather a lot of good (like saving us from extinction).