I woke up on Saturday and saw an alert on global warming:

After correcting for the mistake, the researchers obtained fundamentally different results: whereas Spencer's analysis showed a cooling of the Earth's troposphere, the new analysis revealed a warming.

Using the analysis from Mears and Wentz, Santer showed that the new data was consistent with climate models and theories.

"When people come up with extraordinary claims -- like the troposphere is cooling -- then you demand extraordinary proof," Santer said. "What's happening now is that people around the world are subjecting these data sets to the scrutiny they need."

USA Today also reports the same thing. On a related subject that came up a few days ago:

Summers in European cities have grown up to 2.2 Celsius (4.0 Fahrenheit) hotter since the 1970s and global warming may cause ever more sweltering temperatures, the WWF conservation group said on Thursday.

Do I hear a naysayer? Wake up already. With this, I do hope the world can go beyond Kyoto and something more effective, backed with sterner but sensible action.

Regardless, the monster haze is sparing Kuala Lumpur today.





Compare that to similar shots taken three days ago.





This is definately a relief though I think I'm having a fever due to my singing in the haze yesterday.

p/s - Heh. Indonesia wants Malaysia to pay for oxygen produced by Indonesian forest in reaction to DAP's demand for compensation (via). That's the spirit...

In all seriousness, this shows how porous the nation state's border is, considering all externalities, jokes aside.

pp/s - Heh. I have a sweet idea how to handle that suggestion.

Let’s assume all public spaces are privatized, including the atmosphere and the ocean and hence, Indonesia would be able to charge Malaysia for Indonesian oxygen utilized by Malaysians. However, assume that all nation states in this world are able to monitor their borders and have full knowledge of what crosses their borders.

Now, it’s safe to say that oxygen produced by Indonesia, or as a matter of fact any gas produced by anything that is owned by anybody, knows no boundary. Ergo, each year, countless Indonesian oxygen crosses into Malaysia illegally. Therefore, we should sue Indonesia for failing to prevent Indonesian oxygen from reaching Malaysia and hence, forcing Malaysians to breathe Indonesian oxygen!

If this is nonsensical at best, idiotic at its worst, that Indonesian engineer should have known better. Unless of course, if we were to privatize everything, it would be a different story altogether.

ppp/s - my goodness, Indonesia actually refuses Malaysia and even ASEAN’s help! What is wrong with the Indonesian government? Just accept the fact that you can’t effectively act within your own domain and desperately needs help!