There is a common misconception concerning the environmentally destructive actions of governments and corporations. And, unfortunately, Google’s new Earth Engine application—with good intentions paving the way—falls prey to the fallacy.

When governments or corporations sanction or engage in ecologically harmful practices, such as clear cutting forests, people who believe the ecologically harmful practices in question are bad ideas often wonder at why governments or corporations would authorize such obviously destructive actions.

A banner hung in Paris during last week's International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna meetings.

Long ago in an economy far, far away, I was a writer for one of those trendy Internet-obsessed business magazines that doubled as the literary justification for Dot-com hedonism.

For a while I wrote interesting articles about the genius of WebVan and the marketing goulash that was Pets.com, but as the bubble neared its ultimate bursting, the stories I wrote all started sounding the same. Company X.com is down 50 cents to a dollar and a quarter today and NASDAQ threatened to delist the stock on projections that Company X.com will post losses of $100 million annually for the next 10 years.

Soon enough, it became apparent that it wasn’t necessarily Company X.com and its brethren that were to blame for the Dot-com crash. Rather, it was an investment and business model flawed at its fundamental core that prized hyper-techy hipness over practicality and common sense.

It’s not uncommon in our technology-obsessed society for common sense to be tossed aside in favor of robotic gadgetry and whiz-bang statistics that look impressive but don’t really convey relevant information. Case in point: winery Mobius Marlborough’s new bottle labeling campaign.

The New Zealand winemaker’s sauvignon blanc bottles now feature the calculated carbon footprint of each glass of wine printed on the label. In other words, the labels will convey the amount of CO2 generated by the growing, harvesting, winemaking, bottling, and shipping of the wine. As The Guardian newspaper reports: “Experts estimate that a 750ml bottle of wine [shipped from New Zealand to the U.K.] at 190g CO2 per glass equates roughly to the carbon emissions released by a three-mile car journey.”

Kudos to Mobius Marlborough for its well-intentioned decision, but upon closer examination, the carbon footprint label also creates a couple of interesting quandaries.

The CounterParts Crew does not rap about “popping caps” or “getting hyphy,” and they would likely question the eco-friendliness of anyone “rolling on dubs.” Instead, the hip-hop group is dropping rhymes in the name of today's election and California's Proposition 23.

The Crew’s new tune, “No on Prop 23,” takes aim at the Texas oil companies and allied politicians that are attempting to block implementation of California’s pioneering global warming legislation, commonly referred to as AB 32. Discussing everything from power plants spewing toxic chemicals to respiratory illness resulting from air pollution, the song is pretty sophisticated in its perspective on the proposition. A sample of the Crew’s lyrical deftness:

The California Jobs Initiative is what they title it / Assuming that we’re stupid and we cannot decipher it … Three quarters of the funding from two Texas oil businesses / $5 million spent, y’all can guess just what their interest is … 23 is a false dichotomy between jobs and health / So vote for big oil or vote for yourself.

Ever throw a nice little dinner party for a few close friends and have it balloon into a full-blown, packed-house rager? Well, for British Columbia’s Fraser River, this year’s sockeye salmon run has exceeded all expectations and a migratory soiree of mammoth proportions is in full effect.

Scientists are estimating this year’s run to be in the neighborhood of 34 million sockeye. That’s an incredible number considering last year saw very few sockeye in the Fraser with numbers hovering around 1 million. The anadromous species, which breeds in streams and rivers, but lives the majority of its life in the ocean, has seen its populations decline precipitously over the past century.

Speculation abounds as to why the sockeye migration has swelled so unexpectedly.

Bombs, nuclear power plants and groundwater. What do they all have in common? Well, according to a new study published by the University at Buffalo (UB), the answer could soon be uranium.  

The study conducted by UB geologist Tracy Bank shows that hydraulic fracture drilling, or fracking, in the Marcellus shale deposit on the East Coast of the United States will result in the pollution of groundwater with uranium. Bank found that naturally occurring uranium trapped in Marcellus shale is released into groundwater following hydraulic fracturing, a practice of pumping high-pressured water and chemicals into rock formations to break up and release elements; in this case, natural gas.

Explains Bank:

"We found that the uranium and the hydrocarbons are in the same physical space...that they are not just physically—but also chemically—bound. That led me to believe that uranium in solution could be more of an issue because the process of drilling to extract the hydrocarbons could start mobilizing the metals as well, forcing them into the soluble phase and causing them to move around."

Bank’s hypothesis proved correct once samples of Marcellus shale were tested in the laboratory. The implications of the study are significant.Polluting groundwater with uranium, a toxic metal and radioactive element, could cause serious human health impacts if the uranium made its way into municipal drinking water systems or emitted toxic radon gas near communities.

It seems the oil and gas drilling industry would rather not acknowledge the water pollution associated with hydraulic fracturing. Which is why Earthjustice is fighting on Capitol Hill to close a loophole exempting the industry from the Safe Drinking Water Act, challenging backroom deals between government regulators and the oil and gas industry, and fighting for the strongest possible regulations to protect clean air and water supplies.

Elementary school children are notorious for calling out new rules during games of handball on the playground. “No waterfalls!” “I call no handsies!”

The United Kingdom’s new Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme seems to be employing similar logic as it proclaims: “No paybacks!”

The U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) designed the cap-and-trade scheme that requires large non-energy-intensive organizations (read: power plants get a pass) to reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. This is estimated to cut about 1.2 million tons of carbon per year. The original plan was to have the nation’s top commercial energy consumers pay into a fund that would later distribute the money back to the companies, with the most energy-efficient businesses receiving larger payments as a reward for reducing emissions.

But, this week, the DECC changed its mind and altered the system.

Following the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the idea of continuing deep water drilling sounded more than dubious. But, Interior Sec. Ken Salazar apparently found the idea perfectly sensible when he lifted the deep water drilling moratorium earlier this month, just weeks after the gushing BP well was finally shut down.

So, it hardly comes as much of a surprise that the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) similarly gave the thumbs up this week to a plan to mine minerals from the ocean floor off the island nation’s coast.

The Global Work Party organized by environmental activist Bill McKibben and his 350.org campaign may be the answer to life, the universe and everything.

In October 2009, the 350.org campaign orchestrated more than 5,000 rallies urging political leaders to make meaningful progress on climate change. The success of last year’s day of action spawned this year’s Global Work Party that takes place on a day with numerological significance.

In binary code (a computer system using the binary digits ‘0’ and ‘1’ to relay instructions), 10/10/10 translates to the number 42, which in the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is offered up by the supercomputer Deep Thought as the “answer to life, the universe and everything.” The numbers have additional significance concerning the 10:10 climate change campaign.

And, speaking of numbers, why 350.org? The moniker refers to 350 parts per million of CO₂ in the atmosphere, the number scientists have determined is the planet’s limit if significant climate change is to be averted.

Work party events are scheduled at locations globally, including throughout the United States. Those interested in taking part can check the 350.org site for work party locations in their area or register to host their own event. The 350.org campaign takes a sensible view of the event’s impact while stressing its overall importance. Their website explains:

The goal of the day is not to solve the climate crisis one project at a time, but to send a pointed political message: if we can get to work, you [government leaders] can get to work too--on the legislation and the treaties that will make all our work easier in the long run.

Word up.

SunChips, the solar-inspired snack with an environmental conscience, has announced it will discontinue its new compostable bag at the behest of consumers who complained the packaging housing the snack with “18 grams of whole grain delicious!!” unleashed a cacophonous assault upon the ears of unsuspecting gastronomes. 

Frito-Lay North America, Inc., the folks who produce SunChips, say sales of the snack chip are down 11 percent over the past year as a result of displeasure with the bags. SunChips is now at work on the next generation of quieter compostable bags, although the company’s website makes no mention of when such bags will be available. Sometimes, trying to do the right thing isn’t so easy.

While SunChips deserves praises for its compostable bag attempt, the company takes a somewhat peculiar perspective when it comes to greening its practices. For example, its website touts the new solar panels at its Modesto, Calif., production facility (good), but with language that belies an environmental naiveté (not so good).