Daily Links

Salon.com News | Katrina's destructive waves
An MIT global warming expert argues that the damage wrought by Atlantic hurricanes in the past decade has more to do with rampant development than a vengeful Mother Nature.

CARB Doubts Medium-Term Diesel Bus NOx Improvements; Considers Mandating Alternative Fuels: Green Car Congress

Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much
While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are "scientifically savvy and alert," he said in an interview. Most of the rest "don't have a clue." At a time when science permeates debates on everything from global warming to stem cell research, he said, people's inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.

Daily Links

GreenBiz News | Report: Young Sell-Side Analysts Fail to Fill Void in Sustainability Research
A survey expecting to find the upcoming generation of securities analysts eagerly assessing environmental, social, and governance issues in their recommendations discovers the exact opposite.

To Play Is the Thing - NYT

Daily Links

Trees don't suck up carbon dioxide as hoped: nature.com
'Some scientists and politicians cling to the idea that a carbon-dioxide-rich future might favour the greening of planet Earth. It's time to disillusion them,' says Christian Korner, a plant ecologist at the University of Basel who led the study. 'What remains is the greenhouse gas effect,' he adds.

Washington to be sued over global warming - The Independent
A judge in San Francisco gave permission for the two groups, along with four US cities, to sue two federal development agencies that provide billions of dollars in loans to fund projects overseas. Some of the projects are power plants that emit greenhouse gases while others include pipeline projects that allow the transfer of oil.

Mill to cut emissions, odor
Georgetown residents could be breathing easier by 2007 when International Paper Co. starts a new air-pollution-control device that also will cut the plant's traditional burnt-cabbage scent.

Daily Links

Federal Judge OKs Global Warming Lawsuit - SF Gate:
Environmental groups and four U.S. cities can sue federal development agencies on allegations the overseas projects they back financially contribute to global warming, a judge has ruled.

3 States Seek Emissions Pact - Washington Post
A day after nine northeastern states pledged to reduce local electric utilities' carbon dioxide pollution by 10 percent over 15 years to combat global warming, California officials said they hoped to outpace their eastern counterparts in a yet-to-be-negotiated pact with Oregon and Washington. Representatives of the three western states plan to meet in Sacramento in mid-September to hash out the details.

Mayors Seek Regional Plan on Power Plant Gas Emissions - New York Times
The mayors of more than 40 cities in the Northeast have urged the governors of New York and eight other states to quickly adopt a regional plan to regulate greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, saying in a letter yesterday that climate change "poses significant threat to the people and communities of the Northeast."

Nine states review proposal to enforce emissions cuts - Financial Times

US states bypass Bush to tackle greenhouse gas emissions - Guardian

US states plan to cut emissions - BBC
Officials in nine north-eastern US states have reached a ground-breaking preliminary deal to reduce power plant emissions, a US newspaper has reported.

Daily Links

9 States in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants - New York Times
Officials in New York and eight other Northeastern states have come to a preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their current levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, according to a confidential draft proposal.

Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain

Daily Links

A Techie, Absolutely, and More - New York Times
"'If you have only technical knowledge, you are vulnerable,' said Thomas W. Malone, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of 'The Future of Work' (Harvard Business School Press, 2004). 'But if you can combine business or scientific knowledge with technical savvy, there are a lot of opportunities. And it's a lot harder to move that kind of work offshore.'"

New Fuel-Economy Standards To Require Modest Improvements

The $10,000 Question

Baseball Diversion

Ever since reading Moneyball, I have been interested in using stats and baseball. Last week, Allen St. John wrote an article (Closing Knights) in the WSJ about using a stat he calls off-base percentage (OFB) to rank pitchers. I did this little analysis on the Phils and posted it as a comment on Swing and a Miss.

To calculate these numbers, I used ESPN's game log page for each pitcher and calculated:

[1-((Hits+BB)/BF)]

I'm assuming BF is batters faced. These numbers do not include last night's game. I included starters even though the article only talks about the bullpen.

Anyway, my results:

Pitcher (OFP)
Wagner (0.773)
Fultz (0.740)
Madson (0.720)
Lidle (0.715)
Myers (0.714)
Urbina (0.709) - includes DET
Lieber (0.695)
Geary (0.686)
Tejeda (0.684)
Cormier (0.667)
Padilla (0.656)

Daily Links

Search is on way to trap planet-heating carbon dioxide

Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world

WSJ.com - Google Helps Clients Get Personal
The free program, known as Sidebar, presents consumers with a pane of customized information -- such as weather forecasts, stock quotes, news headlines, text feeds from favorite Web sites, photo slideshows and email alerts -- that sits alongside whatever else the user is viewing.

New on Amazon: Short Stories For 49 Cents

Closing Knights
Off-Base Percentage, or OFB. To get a reliever's OFB, take the number of batters he retires, and divide that by the total number of batters he faces. Functionally, OFB is the inverse of on-base percentage, and the guys with a high OFB are the ones you'd like to have on the pitcher's mound in the late innings with a one-run lead. With that in mind, here are this season's leaders in OFB.

GAELIC DICTIONARY - FACLAIR

Daily Links

Be Warned: Mr. Bubble's Worried Again

Daily Links

WTNH.com - Mayors pitch switch to clean energy
The wager is over which town will have more people sign up for the clean energy option by Earth Day, April 22nd. Clean energy does mean a few extra dollars a month on your electric bill. The losing mayor has to wear the other town's t-shirt for a day.

Some Summer Air Is Cleaner, EPA Says

Daily Links

Record-Breaking Heat: Is Global Warming to Blame?
"But Trenberth said global warming likely underlies the heat. 'One way to say it is, It's summer weather with a clear touch of global warming thrown in,' he said."

Daily Links

Web access may be as close as an electrical outlet | csmonitor.com

Philadelphia Story: The Next Borough - New York Times