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July 15 marked the day that would have nullified another Bush-era act in regards to the environment. It would have been a day for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Wilderness Society to cheer. It would have been a day that released around 15,000 acres of sensitive land from the firing squad of oil and gas development. It would have been. But it wasn’t.

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With some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes, Utah is a haven for the seeker of peace and a respite from the industrialization of the modern world. But those lands have long been in the cross hairs of development’s long sight. With the possibility of an oil well beneath the Fisher Towers, a mine in Moab’s Goldbar Canyon or an off-road vehicle trail paralleling the Colorado River in Westwater Canyon, lovers of the land have fought for decades to preserve the solitude of the desert.

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The term “sustainable” is rarely seen in the same sentence as “airplane.” Maybe because an airplane’s CO2 emissions, per passenger and per mile, are almost as environmentally inefficient as driving a car with one passenger.  So, what’s an ecopreneur to do when trying to be as green as possible, but not able forgo airplanes altogether?

The good news is that the economics of the airline industry—rising fuel prices and a global economic downturn—are leading all airlines to be more forward thinking about sustainability (even if they have a long way to go). But a few airlines are getting love for their environmental efforts.  Take Continental, Virgin Atlantic,  Jet Blue or Southwest. In 2007, Fortune Magazine named Continental Airlines as one of the “10 Green Giants” in America citing the airline’s $16 billion investment in efficient aircraft, fuel-saving winglets that reduce fuel emissions, their 75% reduction in the nitrogen oxide output from ground equipment at its Houston hub, its 13 full-time staff environmentalists and its corporate recycling practices. Virgin Atlantic is also considered a green leader in a black industry. It has new fleets, innovative recycling programs and leading-edge brother-companies, Virgin Green Fund and Virgin Fuel that invest in new products and technologies that will help reduce CO2 emissions.  JetBlue gets good reports because of their newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft and their in-flight recycling and waste-management programs. Southwest is an U.S. EPA Blue Skyways Collaborative Partner and has won environmental stewardship awards including the President’s Environmental Youth Award, the Dallas Water Utilities Blue Thumb Silver Award (2001-2006), the 2007 Port of Portland Aviation Environmental Excellence Award and the 2007 Keep Dallas Beautiful Environmental Excellence Award.

And, just to prove the point that green business is good business, The 2008 Zagat Airline Survey released today named these four airlines as best-in-class on several consumer-based metrics.  According to ZagatBuzz:

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By turning a long line of mirrors, the first solar thermal plant in nearly two decades was launched last week in Bakersfield, California. Unlike solar photovoltaic systems that convert sunlight into electricity, this plant will focus sunlight on tubes that contains water. The light heats the water, creating steam, thus turning turbines.

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Marine physicist Tim Barnett and climate scientist David Pierce reached that conclusion after analyzing the region’s current and planned water usage and taking into account the ongoing impact of climate change.

Furthermore, they acknowledge their projections are based on conservative estimates … meaning the prognosis for Lake Mead could be even worse than their study indicates. Even if the area implements current water-use mitigation plans, they warn, Lake Mead could still go dry.

“We were stunned at the magnitude of the problem and how fast it was coming at us,” Barnett said. “Make no mistake, this water problem is not a scientific abstraction, but rather one that will impact each and every one of us that live in the Southwest.”

Barnett and Pierce concluded that current conditions are creating a net deficit of almost 1 million of acre-feet of water — enough to meet the needs of about 8 million people — every year in the Colorado River system, which includes both Lake Mead and Lake Powell. That volume is likely to increase as a warming Earth causes more water evaporation, they add.

The Colorado River system supplies water to large parts of the Southwest, including Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas.

Barnett’s and Pierce’s study also found there’s a one in 10 chance Lake Mead could go dry by 2014 … a mere six years from now. The researchers say there’s also a 50 percent chance that, by 2017, water levels will be too low to support hydroelectric power generation.

Projections like that make Las Vegas’ current mortgage crisis pains pale in comparison. Could an evaporating Lake Mead lead to the first wave of climate evacuees in the U.S.? Sad to say, we might know the answer in a few short years.