Previously, skeptics of global warming pointed to a study that showed Antarctica is cooling down as a proof that global warming is a hoax (tag). They asked, if the Earth is really warming up, then why Antarctica is cooling down?

That's a legit concern and throughout my experience, that question was one of the hardest points to counter. I had never managed to rise up above that. Until today, that is.

In the New York Times today, the lead author of the study comes up and put this concern to rest:

Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals — thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals — all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth?

Global warming is real. The connection between the warming and human activities is real. The threat is real.

And yeah, just like the Brown's Da Vinci Code, Crichton's State of Fear is a work of fiction. If you really want to find out about global warming, you should read academic papers, not fiction.

  

p/s - erosion of free speech in apparent in Malaysia. With the Prime Minister's "advice" to stop discussion concerning freedom of religion and a government plan to gag free speech on the internet, I'd like to take back my opinion that under Badawi administration, there's more freedom.

That's bull. Completely bull.

The Badawi administration is starting to look like the previous one.

  

pp/s - I was browsing an article on the Constitution of Malaysia and this. Does Zaid Ibrahim edit Wikipedia?